Take-Two asks fans to please go see the Borderlands movie

Give it a chance, for Strauss Zelnick

Lionsgate

The Borderlands movie is off to a rough start, with one of the lowest Rotten Tomatoes scores ever, but Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says you should give it a chance anyway. Please.

“Let's give the film a chance,” Zelnick said during Take-Two’s most recent earnings call (thanks, Eurogamer). “A lot of people worked really hard on it. The underlying intellectual property is phenomenal, the cast is amazing, I think the look and feel is really terrific. So let's see what audiences have to say.”

Wanting to wait for the audience consensus is a valid stance in this instance, even after the Borderlands movie's early impressions were so poor. Lionsgate decided to release the film in the middle of the week, during a time when colleges and universities are starting their fall semesters and secondary school students are getting ready to head back to school. Early box office takings are hardly indicative of a film’s performance under those circumstances, when its target audience probably doesn’t even have time to see it.

Zelnick isn’t too bothered if you and everyone else doesn’t go see the Borderlands movie, though. Even if the film fails to recover its estimated $150 million budget, Zelnick says it won’t hurt Take-Two or even Borderlands specifically.

“No, the performance of the film wouldn't have a financial impact on us or on the franchise one way or another,” he said when asked.

Randy Pitchford's dreams of a Borderlands cinematic universe might still see reality after all, then.