Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick now admits that the recently released Borderlands movie was “disappointing” but shared that the film drove sales to the catalog.

Cate Blanchett as Lilith, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, Florian Munteanu as Krieg, and Kevin Hart as Roland in Borderlands. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate

Back in August, Zelnick was encouraging moviegoers to give Borderlands a chance despite overwhelmingly negative reviews. He told IGN at the time, “Let’s give the film a chance. 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.”

He also shared that the film’s box office fate would not affect the franchise, “But to answer your question, no, the performance of the film wouldn’t have a financial impact on us or on the franchise one way or another.”

Cate Blanchett as Lilith, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, Kevin Hart as Roland, Florian Munteanu as Krieg and Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis in Borderlands. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate

The film eventually bombed at the box office only grossing $15.4 million domestically and another $17.4 million internationally for a global gross of just $32.9 million. It reportedly had a budget of around $115 million according to KoiMoi.

Box office analyst OMB Reviews noted that the film needed to gross around $300 million in order to break even and shared that the film likely lost around $144 million.

Speaking with IGN ahead of the company’s Q2 earnings call earlier this week, Zelnick admitted the film’s reception and box office was “disappointing.”

He said, “Obviously that movie was disappointing. That said, it actually sold more catalog. So, I don’t think it hurt at all, if anything I think it may have helped a little bit. It does highlight something that I’ve spoken about many times which is the difficulty of bringing our intellectual property to another medium.”

Eli Roth in Borderlands. Photo Credit: Katalin Vermes

In fact, in the company’s Earnings Presentation it shared that its “Q2 Net Bookings were $1.47 billion, which was at the top of our guidance range, driven by strength in the Grand Theft Auto and Borderlands franchises.”

In prepared remarks, during the earnings call, Zelnick reiterated his comments to IGN, “Our catalog also outperformed, led by our immensely popular Borderlands franchise.”

Zelnick also shared in the company’s Q2 2025 Earnings Release that it plans to release Borderlands 4 some time in its fiscal year 2026.

A screenshot from Borderlands 3 (2020), Gearbox Software

What do you make of Zelnick’s admission that the movie was disappointing, but despite it clearly bombing in theaters it was able to drive sales for the Borderlands franchise?