Borderlands is rivaled perhaps only by Megalopolis in being one of the biggest movie flops of 2024.... but the new year brings new fates, and in 2025 Prime Video has given Borderlands a second wind with audiences. Trust the biggest streaming services to bring movies back from the dead!
The video game adaptation quickly amassed terrible reviews after being released in August 2024, with 10% on Rotten Tomatoes and a box office of only $33m against a budget of at least $110m.
However Borderlands was added to Prime Video's library in the UK recently, and its success on the streamer defies this poor reception.
The movie has been flitting around on Prime Video's most-watched list; currently it's #6 (but only the second highest movie), but by some accounts it's spent time at the top of the list. That's despite the recent addition of Reacher season 3, one of Prime Video's biggest shows.
At #6 it's above Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, which were recently added to the streamer, as well as Invincible which is currently getting new episodes. So it's proving a pretty huge hit!
Borderlands is set on an alien planet, about a group of bounty hunters searching for a mysterious treasure vault, while an evil corporation tries to obtain the contents for their own ends. It stars Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Ariana Greenblatt, Jamie Lee Curtis and the voice of Jack Black, and was criticized for basically everything a movie can be slated for, hence the poor reviews.
So why's it doing so well on streaming? Well, that's pretty easy to explain, because it's pretty commonplace to see flop movies perform inexplicably well on streaming services. We often see it on Netflix, but it can happen on other streamers too.
If early reviews of a new movie are bad, people tend to avoid it, not wanting to pay their own money to go to the cinema to see it. But if the movie is then added to a streaming service which people have (bearing in mind that Prime Video has the second highest subscriber count of any streamer), many will tune in out of curiosity to see what was so bad about it.
I can only presume that's what's happening for Borderlands, because if its poor reviews weren't enough to put you off, the Guardians of the Galaxy-ripoff trailers and promotional materials would have sealed the deal.
I saw Borderlands at the cinema and it was hard to enjoy even as a "fun bad" movie after a few pints, but I think if I hadn't seen it there I might be curious to stream it on Prime Video. Curiosity killed the cat, and it might also convince you to stream the 100-minute film for your next movie night.
If you live in the US, Borderlands is on Starz instead of Prime Video.
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