Uwe Boll facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Uwe Boll
Boll in 2016
Born	(1965-06-22) 22 June 1965 (age 59) Wermelskirchen, West Germany
Education	University of Cologne University of Siegen
Occupation	Film director producer screenwriter
Years active	1990–2016 2020–present
Spouse(s)	Natalia Tudge ​ (m. 2014)​
Children	1

Uwe Boll (German: [ˈuːvə ˈbɔl]; born 22 June 1965) 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 straight to home media. 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 1994, he published a dissertation (doctorate thesis) 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 on the set of In the Name of the King at the studios in Vancouver, 2006

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 (2007), 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 percent 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.

Boll at a 2016 presentation of his film Rampage: President Down

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.

..... 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 (How one must make a movie in Germany)
• Die Gattung Serie und ihre Genres (Genus Series and its Genres), on themes of serial television.
• Warum sich keiner mehr zu sagen traut was wirklich ist (Why everybody is scared to say the truth)
• Tabula Rasa (Uwe's biography)
• Uwe Boll Raw: A Memoir

Games

Boll appeared in the 2011 video game Postal III.

Restaurants

Following his retirement from filmmaking, Boll entered the restaurant industry. His desire to become a restaurateur came from his own love of fine dining. He claims to have visited 120 Michelin-starred restaurants within a span of 10 years, and has made a short video series of restaurant reviews.

In 2015, Boll opened the Bauhaus Restaurant in Vancouver, after noting a lack of German cuisine in the city. He hired Stefan Hartmann as executive chef, who earned a Michelin star for his own Hartmanns Restaurant in Berlin. Hartmann resigned from Bauhaus in April 2017, to be replaced by chefs David Mueller and Tim Schulte.

Bauhaus has received some positive reviews from local and international food critics. The restaurant ranked 37th on the 2016 list of Canada's 100 Best Restaurants. It is also listed in The World's 50 Best Restaurants Discovery Series in 2017, being one of only three Canadian restaurants to be included.

Boll has remarked about his newfound success in owning a restaurant: "It's interesting, right? I had to open up a restaurant to get good reviews."

In early 2018, Boll and his wife Natalie formed the Bauhaus Group to expand business. The group acquired the Blenheim Pub in Vancouver, changing it from a sports bar to a family-oriented restaurant. The restaurant closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also announced plans to open a second Bauhaus Restaurant location in Toronto in early 2019. A third location in China is also planned, to be opened in the Ocean Flower Island artificial archipelago and led by two European Michelin-starred chefs.

In 2020, his restaurant won a gold award for Best European Restaurant at the 2020 Vancouver Magazine Awards.

Personal life

Boll currently lives in Vancouver. Despite having lived in Canada for many years, he still retains his German citizenship. He married Canadian film producer Natalia Tudge in 2014. Together, they have a son and a stepson.

Filmography

Film

Music videos

See also

In Spanish: Uwe Boll para niños