The Borderlands movie's $90m box office failure "was indeed disappointing," but it did still help sell some old Borderlands games

After the tremendous critical and commercial flop of the Borderlands movie, even Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick agrees that the film was "disappointing." But hey, he reckons, at least it helped sell some old Borderlands games.

"We have selectively licensed intellectual properties," Zelnick tells Variety. "As you know, we have a deal pending on Bioshock for example. And while the Borderlands movie was indeed disappointing, it was good for our catalog sales of Borderlands titles." 

While Zelnick admits he "would prefer to have a huge hit," however, he also reminded investors that it was the film's distributor, not Gearbox or Take-Two, that lost out. "We didn't have a financial exposure to the negative," he reassured listeners.

"So we are selective for exactly the reason that you just cannot control these outcomes," he continued. "And we prefer to control our own destiny. However, we still will license selectively."

The Borderlands movie was a $90 million flop that was only briefly dethroned as the worst-reviewed film of the summer by the maligned Crow reboot. Borderlands 4 was announced just two weeks after the film's release, which fans jokingly referred to as series boss Randy Pitchford's ultimate "big brain move."

Zelnick's comments come alongside Take-Two's latest financial report, in which the company reiterated its plans to release Borderlands 4 in fiscal year 2026 - which ends on March 31, 2026. The game's original teaser trailer promised that it would launch in 2025, which is well within the date range. However, Zelnick tells Variety that with GTA 6 penciled in for fall 2025, the company doesn't want to "stack up huge releases unnecessarily."

Borderlands fan will get to see Borderlands 4 early after Gearbox agrees to fly him to the studio following cancer diagnosis: "I never expected anything like this."