For the latest issue of Film Stories magazine, we chatted to director Eli Roth about Borderlands – and the film’s opening weekend was definitely on his mind.
Eli Roth’s Borderlands opened in cinemas on Friday. The film was mostly critically panned – we were kinder to it than most – and according to Variety, the film earned only $8.8m from US cinemas on its first weekend.
Back in June, we asked Roth if he was worried about the opening weekend of his Borderlands film. The trailer was criticised by fans of the game, but Roth seemed largely positive, while admitting that you always worry about the opening weekend with big studio films.
“You’re thinking about that with a tentpole movie,” Roth told us. “You’re very much thinking about opening weekend, but that’s on the marketing department. My job [is] to make the best movie possible and I feel like I’ve done that.”
Roth’s close friend and collaborator Quentin Tarantino also offered Roth some advice on opening weekends. Tarantino assured Roth that opening weekends aren’t everything when the pair worked on 2005’s gorefest Hostel together.
“I said, ‘Isn’t this movie too crazy?’ He goes, ‘Don’t think about opening weekend, think about that weekend 15 years from now, if kids are still watching it at sleepovers, that’s the only weekend that matters. 15 years from now, is your movie a classic?’”
The director also recognised that Borderlands, like all films, will go to a streaming service eventually and because “DVD doesn’t exist anymore” – his quote, not ours! – things are harder than ever.
“[Borderlands] is going to [eventually] go to a streamer, so theatrical is really where they’re making their money, and it’s hard, because people have more choices than ever.”
You can read more about Borderlands in the latest issue of Film Stories magazine, available now.
