Randy Pitchford has posted through it after Borderlands was bombed bad

The Borderlands movie is out and, in case you missed it, it's a real flop. Joshua Wolens' concerns aside, it looks like Borderlands is on its way to being a box office bomb. It earned just $8.8M over its opening weekend (totaling $16.5M globally) which is not good for a movie that cost $150 million to produce.

Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford found a positive in the outcome.

Pitchford tweeted this over the weekend: "So, what you're saying to me is that you like what my friends I and Borderlands videogames do even more than what some of the best and biggest cast and crew film makers in the world have done," Pitchford wrote. "I'm super flattering!" We're working hard to bring you the next step.

(I assume "four" isn't a misspelling, but rather a wordplay tease for Borderlands 4, which has been confirmed).

He repeated the sentiment in a reply-tweet a little later: "I'm actually pretty fucking flattered that people are essentially saying that my team and I are doing a better job building characters and telling stories and making entertainment than this un-fucking-believable cast and crew of some of the biggest and best film makers on the planet. I am super happy to be living in that world."

And again, with feeling

It's a valid perspective, but you have to be willing to squint a little and tilt your head to see it. What works in one form of media may not translate well into the other. There are many bad game-based films that prove this. A paper-thin reason to mindlessly blow up shite can work well for a videogame, but it won't hold up on a big screen for more than a few hours.

Does Pitchford's statement stand up as a defense for the Borderlands film? Absolute no. The director Eli Roth stated that he was inspired to create the film after watching his dog do a poop (nope, that's not a lie) and I believe the results accurately reflect that tale. It's a straight-up spooky movie. There are probably many things people would prefer to watch: a dog dropping a healthy three coiler on a neighbor's lawn.

Pitchford denied that an R rating (which is more typical of Roth’s work) would have made a difference, instead of the PG-13 the movie ultimately received.

"I love some blood in the games -- I actively work on this!" He tweeted. "But I can't figure out why a mind would need that to judge a story 'good,' as if a dick, an organ bursting from a body due to violence or a bunch 'fucks" uttered is necessary. It seems like an absurd argument to my mind."

In another tweet, he appeared to admit that the movie wasn't as good as it could've been because scenes that would have provided proper insight into character and motivations were cut. Pitchford responded to a user's comment that the characters in the film lacked depth compared to those in the games. He wrote, "They were great moments, but in post, editors, producers and director felt the pace needed stay quick."

"I hope that some of the deleted footage can be released at some point." I think the decisions made were good overall, given what they had. It's interesting to see that the script and what was shot had an intention to do what you instinctively thought would have been nice. Filmmaking is crazy."

Does that mean we can look forward to a Pitchford Cut? Most likely not. Pitchford, echoing comments made last week by Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick, said that any financial losses on this film would be incurred not by Gearbox, but by the movie studio: "So, I'm really not affected by that except that if it loses money, the studio may not want to produce another movie."

Dare to dream, but I would guess that the odds of Borderlands 2 being released are not very good. It's probably for the best.