Jason Statham Starred In A Panned Fantasy Box Office Flop That Somehow Got Two Sequels
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There are directors with lousy reputations, and then there is Uwe Boll. For those who may not be familiar, Boll has made quite a few movies, most of which are considered very bad. He even made Metacritic's worst-rated live-action video game movie, "Alone in the Dark." Back in 2007, he partnered with action actor extraordinaire Jason Statham for another video game adaptation, one that was equally disastrous. Well, sort of. Despite being a disaster, it somehow spawned several sequels.
Statham is currently starring in "Mutiny," a quintessential Statham punch-up. But about 20 years ago, he got roped into Boll's first-ever big-budget feature film, "In the Name of the King." Or, as it's also known, "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale." Very loosely based on the "Dungeon Siege" video game series, it centers on a man named Farmer (Statham) who sets out to rescue his kidnapped wife and avenge the death of his son, which was committed by the Krugs, a race of animal-warriors who are controlled by the evil Gallian (Ray Liotta).
The result was one of the worst video game flops of all time. It hardly mattered that the movie had very little to do with the game. What mattered was that Boll, who, up to that point, had made lower-budget misfires such as "House of the Dead" and "Rampage," managed to cobble together a huge $60 million budget for this ill-fated fantasy epic. Even a stacked cast that also included the likes of Burt Reynolds ("Boogie Nights"), Leelee Sobieski ("Joy Ride"), Ron Perlman ("Hellboy"), and John Rhys-Davies ("Raiders of the Lost Ark"), among others, couldn't save it.
What Boll delivered was a critical and commercial disaster that ranked amongst the worst one could find at the time.
In the Name of the King was Uwe Boll making a big budget movie with disastrous results
"I don't get the money from the film studios to make my movies. I'm out there, and I raise money in various countries," Uwe Boll said to CinemaBlend in 2007. "I have to presell the movies to various countries and convince private investors to give me money. If you say I make a movie based on a video game, it's an easier sell."
Boll wanted to make a big-budget fantasy movie, and the video game connection helped him secure funding. That explains a lot, in retrospect. "In the Name of the King" was one of the worst-reviewed big-budget movies of the 2000s, holding a mere 4% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was bad enough to make us wonder if Uwe Boll's career was over.
It's Hollywood, though. Critical opinion can be overlooked if a movie makes money. The problem is that this movie didn't make any money either. "In the Name of the King" hit theaters in the U.S. on the weekend of January 11, 2008. It didn't even crack the top ten, making just $3.2 million at the box office. "Cloverfield," which became a monster-sized found-footage hit, arrived the following weekend and sealed the movie's fate.
"In the Name of the King" finished its global run at the box office with $4.7 million domestically and $8.3 million internationally for a grand total of just $13 million worldwide. That didn't cover a fraction of the budget, let alone marketing costs. It was a total disaster. It can't be blamed on Statham or any of the other cast members, for that matter. All the core cast members have made good, if not great, movies before and/or since.
Despite its failure, In the Name of the King became a movie franchise
Even so, Uwe Boll somehow managed to turn this failure into a franchise.
"'In The Name of The King' is doing very well in a lot of countries," Boll said in a 2014 interview with MovieWeb. "I like making movies. The procedure of shooting a movie is what I really, really like. If I can finance a movie because it's an established franchise, then I get to keep doing it. So, that is your answer."
Despite the original movie's box office failure, it did sort of find its audience on home video. That allowed Boll to fail upwards, making two sequels to his blockbuster flop. 2011's "In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds" starred Dolph Lundgren ("Rocky IV") in the lead role, while 2014's "In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission" saw Dominic Purcell ("Prison Break") take over.
Not long after, the director's career took a turn. In 2016, Boll said he was retiring from filmmaking. He cited a decline in DVD sales as a reason he couldn't afford to make movies anymore. Yet, his retirement didn't last long, as he recently filmed "Citizen Vigilante" starring Armie Hammer.
Boll also failed miserably to crowdfund a sequel to his movie "Postal" in 2024, which was yet another video game movie that was lambasted by critics. Jason Statham, meanwhile, managed to have an enduring career as one of Hollywood's go-to action heroes, starring in everything from "The Expendables" to "The Fast and the Furious" sequels. Mercifully, this movie didn't harm his career too much, in the long run.
For the morbidly curious out there, "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" is available on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon.