Fanboys’ favorite ubermensch of suckage, Uwe Boll, may have directed his l-a-s-t big budget theatrical travesty with this past weekend’s $70 million In the Name of the King: Dungeon Siege Tale. The Jason Statham and Burt Reynolds (!) vehicle grossed a mouthwatering $3 million over the weekend, but apparently did “okay” in, drumroll, Boll’s home country of Germany.
“Because of the Boll reputation, it is not easy to get audiences into the cinemas,” Mychael Berg, head of distribution at 20th Century Fox in Germany, told the Hollywood Reporter. “We finally managed it, and we are quite satisfied with the abut 250,000 people who watched the movie (in Germany). We proved that you can make money with a Boll film.”
That might be the first time I’ve ever heard a distribution head publicly apologize for a director’s rep, outside of the porn industry. Hilarious! All cherries are popped sooner or later, I guess. The usually unflappable Boll, whose filmography includes videogame flicks like Bloodrayne 1 & 2 and Alone in the Dark, even sounds like he knows his number is up.
“In the future, I will focus on small films such as (the video game adaptation) ‘Postal’ or (the Vietnam war drama) ‘Tunnel Rats,’ ” Boll said. “These are films that represent my true passion, and they can be done with small budgets.”
Bring on the “passion,” I say. But the real reason for the end to Boll’s inexplicable employment is due to Germany banning tax shelter funds, from which Boll’s pricey Planet 9s were backed. From here on, he’ll have to play the Hollywood game straight-up. I checked his IMDB entry to bathe in his failure…but wait! It lists a $35 million movie coming out in 2010 called Legend: Hand of God from the director’s usual Freestyle Releasing (The Illusionist, Beer League), as well as a slew of others flicks like Zombie Massacre. Somewhere the Dr. Claw of genre films pets his feline and laughs loudly into the night!
January 14th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
FINALLY they stopped him. He is dead. Thank god
January 14th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
It’s an absolute miracle he’s lasted this long. A MIRACLE and nothing short of it.
January 14th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
TBH, this is nothing short of speculation to wether his caeer is over of not lol, i seriously doubt it is, I, myself thought dungeon siege was going to bomb lol, i mean their website hardly looks that professional and I didnt see much advertisng for it.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I don’t know, “Postal” looks just anarchistic enough to be enjoyable.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Alone in the Dark was a perfectly fine movie when you take the budget into consideration. Bloodrayne was pretty bad but still way better than Spiderman 3.
I guess because he makes movies based on games which have a strong fan base people started to knock him and now it is considered silly to like anything about his movies … of course it could be that Europeans get his movies and Americans don’t?
January 15th, 2008 at 6:38 am
This is truly a blessing agreed bring on that passion now…….
however don’t we have FARCRY yet to come from this guy.
and if you don’t like my review i challenge you to a boxing match
January 15th, 2008 at 7:23 am
how does one flap that which has no brain? oh well, KILL IT WITH FIRE
January 15th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Best news ever! Except the title should be: Uwe Boll’s Career is over! And then add a yay! and maybe a woo! Or even a Huzzah!
April 7th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Where is the petition to sign against this. What about the people who want him to keep going?
People who can’t appreciate a Boll film don’t know how to watch movies. Everyone is afraid to admit they enjoyed Heart of America and House of the Dead because of what someone else thinks.
God forbid someone actually watches a Boll film with an open mind and penchant for fun.
No, you all like your epic, unnatural dialogue a la Tarantino and your music video editing a la Robert Cummings (Zombie), No one can recognize a fun film anymore.
You all fail at watching film. Someone watch a Boll film without trying excessively hard to find a flaw. I double dog dare you.
April 10th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
He is not dead. I will go and tell everyone about pro Boll petitions! We will watch his movies and everyone here saying something against him sucks. You are so blind and stupid..you don´t even understand the easiest things he is entitled criticising
April 14th, 2008 at 5:17 am
“God forbid someone actually watches a Boll film with an open mind and penchant for fun.
No, you all like your epic, unnatural dialogue a la Tarantino and your music video editing a la Robert Cummings (Zombie), No one can recognize a fun film anymore.”
Comparing Uwe Boll against other terrible film makers (in my opinion) might have seemed like a reasonable ploy to make him seem good, but unfortunately he stacks short against even those.
Uwe Boll is produces (directs?) cheese-fests. He hasn’t a clue about making anything natural (dialog, or otherwise). I have yet to see one Uwe Boll flick (and boy, have I seen more than I care to) that I would consider fun.
“You all fail at watching film. Someone watch a Boll film without trying excessively hard to find a flaw. I double dog dare you.”
Sure, I try my best to enjoy films, even bad ones. I enjoy having a good time. If I’m going to (or have to) sit through something, I really want to feel like I wasn’t getting a vasectomy (or maybe a pap for the ladies?) during the film. But damned if I can manage to enjoy anything about any of his movies.
“Alone in the Dark was a perfectly fine movie when you take the budget into consideration.”
I beg to differ. I’m only glad I didn’t pay to watch it.