‘Awful’: Blanchett’s wild movie disaster

Australian star Cate Blanchett’s new blockbuster movie has been ripped apart by critics and looks set to be the biggest bomb of the year at the box office.

Cate Blanchett is one of Australia’s most popular movie stars and is a critical darling in Hollywood, so it makes the reception to her new movie even more shocking.

Blanchett stars in Borderlands as Lilith, a mysterious bounty hunter who reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora after a powerful space baron, Atlas (Edgar Ramírez), plays her a huge sum to locate his missing daughter.

The video game adaptation cost a whopping $120 million (AU$180m) to produce, but it tragically looks set to become one of, if not the biggest, box office flop of the year.

Cate Blanchett’s new movie has become a critical bomb. Photo: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Lionsgate.

As of Friday, Rotten Tomatoes critics collectively gave the big-budget movie a 6 per cent “rotten” rating based on 48 reviews.

It marks the worst reviewed movie of Blanchett’s career, and not only that, but one of the worst movies of all time on the website.

Toronto Star critic Peter Howell wrote that “this sci-fi gobbler mixes inept directing, terrible writing, indifferent acting and gawdawful CGI into such stupefying boredom, it feels like nothing could top it for badness.”

London Evening Standard’s critic Vicky Jessop suggested it’s in contention for the worst movie of the year, saying: “It’s so laughably bad, in fact, that it feels like being catapulted back to a time when video game adaptations were a byword for mediocrity.”

Borderlands is expected to make $15 million in its opening weekend, which would make it unlikely to even make up its budget by the end of its run.

Blanchett’s movie is expected to flop at the box office. Photo: Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Lionsgate.

Meanwhile, it comes after Blanchett made a wild remark about her salary for Lord of the Rings.

During a recent interview on Watch What Happens Live, the Australian actress was asked which of her movies earned her the biggest paycheck.

“I think it’s probably Lord of the Rings,” host Andy Cohen guessed.

Blanchett replied, “Are you kidding me? No, no one got paid anything to do that movie.”

When asked whether she received “a piece on the back end,” Blanchett responded, “No! That was way before any of that. No, nothing!”

“I wanted to work with the guy who made Braindead,” she said, referring to New Zealand director Peter Jackson’s 1992 movie, also known as Dead Alive.

“I mean, I basically got free sandwiches, and I got to keep my ears,” Blanchett said.

Originally published as ‘Awful’: Blanchett’s wild movie disaster