Uwe Boll


Uwe Boll is a German filmmaker. He came to prominence during the 2000s for his adaptations of video game franchises. Released theatrically, the films were critical and commercial failures; his 2005 Alone in the Dark adaptation is considered one of the worst films ever made. Boll's subsequent projects, released during the 2010s, were mostly released direct-to-video. After retiring in 2016 to become a restaurateur, Boll returned to filmmaking in 2022. His films are financed through his production companies Boll KG and Event Film Productions.

Early life

Boll was born in Wermelskirchen and studied at the University of Cologne. He holds a PhD in literature; in 1994, he published a dissertation at the University of Siegen.
Boll first decided to go into the movie business at ten years old after seeing Marlon Brando's Mutiny on the Bounty.

Career

Films

Boll's first two major releases were the horror movie Blackwoods and the drama Heart of America, both of which he directed and co-wrote.
He achieved recognition for loosely adapting video games into movies, having directed and produced a number of such adaptations, including House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Alone in the Dark II, BloodRayne, BloodRayne 2: Deliverance, BloodRayne: The Third Reich, In the Name of the King, In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds, In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission, Postal, and Far Cry.
In the opening credits to Seed, Boll used footage of animal abuse and torture he acquired from PETA to underscore the film's nihilism. He has also promised to donate 2.5% of his net profits from Seed to PETA.
In September 2010, a trailer for Boll's film, titled Auschwitz, about the concentration camp of the same name, was posted on YouTube. The trailer, in which Boll appears as an SS gas chamber guard, contains explicit scenes of the brutalization and killing of concentration camp inmates. Boll has been quoted as saying that films such as Schindler's List "no longer had the ability to reach young people and that it was his duty as a German to make the film as a way of confronting the past."
In 2010, Boll was the subject of a documentary film titled Raging Boll, directed by Dan West, which premiered at the Austin Film Festival in October 2010.
In 2011, Boll released Blubberella, a satirical take on superhero movies and a critique of Marvel’s MCU. Boll said, "...my criticism of the MCU in the past could be seen as part of my satirical approach rather than a personal stance on the entire cinematic universe concept."
In March 2012, it was announced he had finished directing a short horror story for the anthology film The Profane Exhibit. The story, inspired by Josef Fritzl, focuses on parents with a daughter locked in a room, where they can partake in immoral acts against her.
Boll planned a fourth entry in the BloodRayne franchise in a contemporary setting involving her trying to live a normal life. Natassia Malthe was expected to return, and was expected to be loosely based on the video game BloodRayne 2.
In August 2013, Boll announced plans to produce a sequel to Postal based on achieving $500,000 from a Kickstarter campaign. The campaign was, however, cancelled on 5 October 2013.
In October 2016, during an interview with the Toronto edition of Metro, Boll announced his retirement from filmmaking, chiefly citing the decline of DVD and Blu-ray sales, noting that he has had to use his own money to finance his work since 2005.
As of 2017, he continued to work as a film producer. In February 2018, he revealed in his vlog that he intends to return to film and has sent proposals to Netflix. However, he no longer wants to finance his projects.
In November 2018, Boll was the subject of a second documentary film titled Fuck You All: The Uwe Boll Story, directed by Sean Patrick Shaul and produced by Prairie Coast Films, which premiered at the 2018 Whistler Film Festival. The film offers insights into Boll's filmmaking journey, capturing the perspectives of those who collaborated with him.
In October 2020, Boll decided to return to making films and announced Germany in Winter as his next project in development.
In 2022, Boll announced that he would be directing and producing Ness, which follows the later part of Eliot Ness's career, and an action thriller titled 12 Hours.
In February 2023, Variety reported that Boll would be directing and producing the crime drama titled First Shift with Kristen Renton and Gino Anthony Pesi in lead roles, following the journey of two contrasting NYPD officers on their initial day as colleagues. At the post-production of First Shift Boll worked with Ethan Maniquis, alongside executive producer Michael Roesch. In October, Quiver Distribution picked up Uwe Boll’s crime drama First Shift for the U.S., Canada and selected international territories.
Uwe Boll appears as himself in the 2023 Romanian film Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World.
As of 2023, Uwe Boll’s estimated net worth is approximately $10 million.

Financing

Boll's films have often performed poorly at the box office in the United States and around the world. House of the Dead, which was budgeted at $12 million, made $5.73 million in its opening weekend, Alone in the Dark, which was budgeted at $20 million, made $5.1 million, and BloodRayne, which was made for $25 million, made $2.42 million.
Boll was criticized in 2005 regarding his funding method, attributed to a loophole in the German tax laws that was finally closed in 2006. In the DVD commentary of Alone in the Dark, Boll explains how he used to fund his films: " the reason I am able to do these kind of movies is I have a tax shelter fund in Germany, and if you invest in a movie in Germany you get basically fifty percent back from the government."
Uwe Boll directed films have generated $41.3 million worldwide.

Writings

Boll has written six books:
  • Wie man in Deutschland einen Film drehen muss
  • Die Gattung Serie und ihre Genres, on themes of serial television.
  • Ihr Könnt mich alle Mal , about his career.
  • Warum sich keiner mehr zu sagen traut was wirklich ist
  • Tabula Rasa
  • ''Uwe Boll Raw: A Memoir''

    Games

Boll appeared in the 2011 video game Postal III.

Reception and reputation

As of September 2023, House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark appear on IMDb's "Bottom 100" film list, with House of the Dead sitting at 7th and Alone in the Dark at 13th as of 2025. In a review of Alone in the Dark, Rob Vaux states that the movie makes other "bad" movie directors feel better in comparison: "'It's okay,' they'll tell themselves, 'I didn't make Alone in the Dark.'" Another reviewer wrote that Alone in the Dark was "so poorly built, so horribly acted and so sloppily stitched together that it's not even at the straight-to-DVD level." One critic has dubbed him the "Jonas Brothers of movie directors".
After Boll was linked to a potential film adaptation of the Metal Gear franchise, series creator Hideo Kojima responded, "Absolutely not! I don't know why Uwe Boll is even talking about this kind of thing. We've never talked to him. It's impossible that we'd ever do a movie with him." Boll also made a bid to direct an adaptation of the Warcraft video game series, but was turned away by the owners of the franchise, Blizzard Entertainment, who said: "We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…especially not to you." Boll commented: "Because it's such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income, what the company has with it."
Blair Erickson, a writer of a treatment for Alone in the Dark, has written a critical account of his experience working with Boll, in which Erickson alleges that Boll stole ideas from prior movies and wanted to add elements to the story that were not true to the tone of the source material. Boll chose not to use Erickson's script, citing reasons such as it having "not enough car chases."
Boll has blamed the poor theatrical performance of his early video game adaptations on his distribution company, Romar, and has filed a lawsuit against them. Boll's films prior to the release of House of the Dead were more positively received. The New York Times, for instance, gave Blackwoods a positive review, although most reactions to the film have been negative.
Boll received a rare "Worst Career Achievement" award at the 29th Golden Raspberry Awards on 21 February 2009 for In the Name of the King, 1968 Tunnel Rats, and Postal. He has been nominated for Razzies three times in total.
In September 2010, Darfur won the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival prize for the best international film.

Response to criticism

In the Alone in the Dark DVD commentary, he responds to criticism that his adaptations make significant changes to the plot and style of the source material: "Fans are always totally flipping out and I understand that the fan of a video game has his own agenda in his head and has his ideas about what is a good movie and what is a bad movie." Referring to House of the Dead, Boll said: "I think I made a perfect House of the Dead movie, because it really shows how the game is. It's a lot of fun, it's over-the-top action." Boll is especially critical of his Internet detractors. Referring to two Ain't It Cool News critics who negatively reviewed his work, Boll said, "Harry and Quint are retards." Boll later claimed Knowles was being "played" by film studios that "kissed his ass" with set visits and pretend offers to produce large-budget films and suggested to Knowles the reason he did not like him was because, "I never kissed your ass, Harry."
Boll also criticizes the game companies themselves for not providing support to the production following the selling of the film rights. He cites the cross-promotion and support that comic book-based properties adapted for the screen receive, whereas video game companies often "sell off the license and then forget about it." He argues that this is the reason video game adaptations are not well received by critics and audiences.
When Wired published a negative review of Postal, Boll responded with an email claiming that the critic didn't "understand anything about movies and that you are an untalented wannabe filmmaker with no balls and no understanding what POSTAL is. You don't see courage because you are nothing. and no go to your mom and fuck her...because she cooks for you now since 30 years..so she deserves it". Boll stated that this angry email was sparked not by the review, but because the Wired editor told Boll in person that they loved the movie and then published a negative review.
While his works were often met with critical disdain, Boll emphasizes that these projects were financially viable, especially in home video sales. He points out that his movies, while low-budget compared to studio blockbusters, often recouped their costs and more, even if they didn't dazzle at the box office. For instance, "House of the Dead", which had a production budget of $7 million, garnered $11 million at the box office and an additional $28 million from home video. Also, he said that his film "BloodRayne" gave more visibility to the game.
In 2023, in response to criticism, Uwe Boll has emphasized the importance of understanding video game source material for film adaptations and reflected on the need for better script development and collaboration with game developers.