Uwe Boll: biography, family and education, directorial career, photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Uwe Boll is a German film director best known for his adaptations of the popular video games Alone in the Dark, Postal and Bloodrain. Many of his films became box office failures and received negative reviews from critics, thanks to which Ball received a reputation as the worst director in the world. In 2016, he decided to leave the film business and opened his first restaurant in Vancouver.

Childhood and youth

Uwe Boll was born on June 22, 1965 in Wermelskirchen. Since childhood, he was fond of cinematography, he shot short films on the Super 8 camera. According to his own words, he fell in love with cinema after watching the historical film Mutiny on the Bounty.

After leaving school, Uwe Boll entered the University of Cologne, where he received his doctorate in literature. Later he attended the University of Siegen where he studied economics. Also, according to his own words, he studied the craft of the director in Berlin and Vienna.

Career start

In the mid-ninetiesyears Uwe Boll began making feature films, often horror films with a small budget. He also often co-wrote the script on his early projects. In 2000, the director's first English-language project was released, the television film "Hunt". The film received mixed reviews from critics.

Two years later, a second English-language project appeared in Uwe Boll's filmography. The psychological thriller "The Twilight of the Mind" was again received by critics quite warmly, but with a budget of three million dollars, it managed to gross a little more than a thousand dollars at the American box office.

Ball continued to work actively, and his first drama film "Heart of America" was released the following year. The film again received mixed reviews from critics. In the same year, the first video game adaptation from the director was released - the horror film "House of the Dead". The budget grew relative to the director's previous projects, but the film could not return the twelve million dollars spent on its production at the end of the rental, and was also negatively received by critics.

Big-budget projects

Two years later, Uwe Boll made another horror film based on the famous game series "Alone in the Dark". Hollywood stars Tara Reid and Christian Slater played the main roles in the film. The film's budget was twenty million dollars, but it was able to collect only ten at the box office. The picture received negative reviews from critics and viewers and almost immediately after the release gained the status of one of the worst films in the world.history.

However, Uwe Boll continued to work and in the same year released a new game adaptation, the vampire action "Bloodrain", starring Kristana Loken, Michael Madsen, Billy Zane and Ben Kingsley. With a budget of $25 million, the film only managed to gross $3.5 million, and once again, Ball's direction was negatively received by critics.

The German, however, did not lose heart, and in 2007 he released as many as four directorial projects. The fantasy thriller In the Name of the King, starring Jason Statham, became both Uwe Boll's most expensive and most unprofitable film, grossing just over $13 million on a budget of $60. The sequel to "Bloodrain" was released immediately on media, Kristana Loken did not return to the role of the main character. The adaptation of the game "Postal" was filmed in a style atypical for Uwe Boll (there was a lot of black humor in the style of the original source), but also did not become a hit at the box office. Horror "The Seed" critics and viewers also did not appreciate.

The following year, Uwe Boll released an action movie based on the video game Far Cry starring German superstar Til Schweiger. The film's budget was thirty million dollars, and the film was able to collect less than a million at the box office.

Also in 2008 Uwe Boll's war drama "Tunnel Rats" was released. This is not a typical film for the director, the plot is based on a true story, the project is shot in a more realistic manner. criticshowever, Ball's reincarnation was not appreciated. At the end of the year, he received the "Golden Raspberry" as the worst director.

A new stage in creativity

Director Uwe Boll often financed the shooting of his films himself, for many years it remained a mystery where he gets the money from, because absolutely all of his projects turned out to be unprofitable. In an interview, he mentioned that he used a loophole in German tax law, according to which the investment in cinema returns to the investor in the amount of almost fifty percent.

In 2006, the law was changed, and Ball could no longer finance major projects with Hollywood actors. Many critics divide Uwe Boll's directorial filmography into two phases. It was after 2008 that he began to shoot more modest films, which were much better received by critics and viewers.

In 2009, the military drama "Darfur" was released, which won several festival prizes and received positive reviews from critics. In the same year, according to many viewers, Uwe Boll's best film "Fury" was released. The picture was released on media everywhere except the director's homeland, but this did not prevent her from receiving positive reviews from critics and gaining cult status a few years later.

In 2011, Ball released the film "Auschwitz", which was again negatively received by critics and viewers. That same year, he returned to live-action adaptations, directing sequels to Bloodrain and In the Name of the King. projects againturned out to be unprofitable financially and could not win the love of the audience.

In 2013, the action movie "The Attack on Wall Street" was released, which many viewers considered Ball's best work in the action genre. In 2014 and 2016, the sequels to "Fury" were released, Uwe Boll, however, could not repeat the success of the original picture.

Retirement

For many years, the director reacted painfully to criticism and got involved in disputes with viewers on the Internet. In 2008, he even promised that he would retire if a petition on the Web gained more than a million signatures. The right amount, however, was never collected.

However, in 2016, Uwe Boll stated in an interview that the third part of the Fury series was his last film, as it was increasingly difficult for him to find funds to finance projects, and raising money on the Kickstarter platform "for the production of the sequel" Postala "failed.

Ball has opened a restaurant in Vancouver that has received positive reviews from industry critics and plans to expand further in this direction. In 2017, Ball's was named one of the top 50 restaurants in the world by Discovery Channel, one of three Canadian restaurants in the rankings.

Other works

In addition to directing and writing scripts for his projects, Uwe Boll has also produced several films. In addition, he has written two books about the production of serials.

In 2018Uwe and his wife founded a business group that acquired a sports bar in Vancouver. The company also intends to open a second restaurant in Toronto in 2019 and is developing a third location in China.

Reviews and ratings

Uwe Boll was nominated three times for the Golden Raspberry anti-award. Some viewers have calculated the average score of his films on IMDB, according to which he is the worst director in history.

The German reacted extremely painfully to the failures of his films, for example, he filed lawsuits against the distributors of "Alone in the Dark" and "Bloodrain", blaming them for the box office failure of the projects. He also repeatedly accused game developers of lack of support when creating film adaptations of the material.

In 2015, a video appeared on the Internet where Uwe Boll addresses viewers who did not fund the third part of the Fury series on the Kickstarter platform. The video, where the director obscenely addresses the audience and behaves extremely strange, has become viral.

In general, the director often disagrees with the criticism of his films, stating that the critics themselves could not realize themselves as filmmakers and do not understand anything about cinema. The concept of "Uwe Boll's argument" has even appeared on the Internet, which can be formulated as "get it first".

Boxing matches with critics

In 2006, Uwe Boll's production company released an official statement according to which the director challenged five critics to a boxing match, negativelyabout his films.

The director won all five fights. After that, some critics accused him of the fact that before the fight he assured them that this was just a publicity stunt, but in fact he fought for real. Ball and his representatives denied this fact. The director's fights with critics were actively discussed in the press and were considered by many to be one of the best publicity stunts in the history of cinema.

Private life

Uwe Ball is married to Canadian producer Natalie Ball (nee Taj). They live in Canada with three children from previous marriages. Also, the couple are engaged in the restaurant business together.