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“Give the film a chance”

The Borderlands movie, which hits theaters this week, is getting some, er… not great reviews. It's currently sitting at an incredibly low 3% on Rotten Tomatoes, and we here at IGN have given it a 3/10.

Borderlands is a franchise developed and operated by Gearbox, which in turn was just acquired by Take-Two. And Take-Two (through its 2K label) is one of the many companies producing the film, along with Gearbox. When I spoke with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick today ahead of the company's first-quarter earnings call, I asked him about the critical reaction. Will the success or failure of the film affect Take-Two in any meaningful way?

Zelnick's answer is no. Financially, this film won't make much of a difference. But he also urged “giving the film a chance” despite the negative reviews. Here is his answer:

“Let's give the film a chance. A lot of people have worked really hard on it. The underlying intellectual property is phenomenal, the cast is great, I think the look and feel is really great. Let's see what the audience says about it. But to answer your question, no, the performance of the film would not have any financial impact on us or the franchise one way or the other.”

I further asked Zelnick his opinion on video game movie adaptations in general, a topic he's spoken about many times. He repeated his answer from the past, which doesn't seem to have changed. Take-Two is “very picky” about which games get made into movies, and he says the company doesn't want to put its stamp on anything unless it's “outstanding.” He adds, however, that the economic impact of licensing a game IP for a movie is small, so there's no real reason to do it unless the creative teams involved are really excited.

“It's not really our core focus,” he said, of making movies out of games. And he added that he expects the publisher will “probably maintain” its approach of only doing so selectively for the foreseeable future. Notably, Take-Two is involved in another film in the works: a BioShock movie at Netflix. That film has been in various stages of development for over a decade, with Netflix coming on board in 2022. Most recently, we learned that leadership changes in Netflix's film division led to a reduced budget for the BioShock movie, which is still in the works but is apparently being “reconfigured.” It's unclear when or if it will see the light of day.

Take-Two reported first-quarter net purchases totaling $1.22 billion and forecast second-quarter net purchases between $1.4 billion and $1.47 billion. Full-year guidance remains between $5.55 billion and $5.65 billion. Expectations for a fall 2025 release of GTA 6 remain unchanged.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter at IGN. Have a story tip? Send it to [email protected].

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