10 Recent Movie Flops EVERYONE Saw Coming

7. Borderlands

Megalopolis Flop
Lionsgate

If any film on this list felt truly cursed since its inception, it's surely Borderlands, which lost the battle with fans of the video games the moment that its admittedly star-studded cast was announced.

Fans were bemused by hiring the short-statured Kevin Hart to play the burly Roland, and casting a 50-something Cate Blanchett as Lilith, a character who is in her early twenties in the first game.

The stew was further tainted by its high-profile strained production - it wrapped shooting in June 2021, but the first trailer didn't drop until February of this year. 

In the interim, reports of poor test screenings, reshoots conducted by a different director - Deadpool's Tim Miller subbing in for original director Eli Roth - and writer Craig Mazin not-so-quietly departing the project generated a tough-to-shake stink.

Combine all this with a $120 million budget, nothingburger set of trailers, the clear disinterest from both the fanbase and regular moviegoers, and reviews being held back until the day before release, and the writing was firmly on the wall.

Borderlands ultimately grossed just $33 million globally, making it one of the biggest flop video game adaptations of all time - an especially wince-inducing outcome in an era where Hollywood has finally started taking the medium seriously.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.