Uwe Boll

Overview

Born
June 22, 1965 · Wermelskirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Nickname
- The Raging Boll
Height
5′ 8″ (1.73 m)

Biography

Family

Spouses

Trademarks

Frequently directs movie versions of video games
Frequently casts Brendan Fletcher, Michael Paré, Will Sanderson, Dominic Purcell, Kristanna Loken, Udo Kier, Billy Zane, Edward Furlong, Eric Roberts, and Clint Howard
Frequently shoots his films in Vancouver, British Columbia
His films often feature a scene involving the death of a child
Recurring flashback scenes

Trivia

Challenged his critics in June 2006 to a "put up or shut up" boxing match. His production company issued a press release stating that Boll would challenge his 5 harshest critics each to a 10-round boxing match. To be eligible, the critic must have written two extremely negative reviews of Boll, in print or on the Web, in 2005. The fights are documented in the film Raging Boll (2010). Boll knocked out all opponents.
[2010] Empire Magazine's 'The 50 Worst Movies Ever' includes 2 films by Uwe Boll: House of the Dead (2003) (Nr.35) and Alone in the Dark (2005) (Nr. 21). Boll is the only director with 2 films on the list.
Despite several Razzie Award nominations, including one "win" for Worst Director, not one of the films he has directed has been awarded the Razzie for Worst Picture.
Lists The Searchers (1956), Taxi Driver (1976), Apocalypse Now (1979), Citizen Kane (1941), A Clockwork Orange (1971), and Breaking the Waves (1996) as some of his favorite films.
Was a film critic for a local radio station in the late 1980s.

Quotes

[about his favorite book, Gustavus Myers' "The History of American Fortunes"] If you follow the money, like the writer did - the history of the Rockefellers and so on - you find out about real history. In that book you learn that the Civil War was not about freeing the slaves, it was all about the money, etc.
[about what he learned from his disastrous experience with Alone in the Dark (2005)] That a script matters.
[on fighting--and winning--against all of his critics in a boxing ring] You see what happens when people get hit in the head? They like my movies!
[asked about how game developers are involved in the making of Postal (2007)] Yeah, they were very involved, this time too much involved, I wrote the script, it's their baby. They liked the treatment, but they didn't like the approach of some stuff, they thought it was too funny, but I said the only way to tell a story like "Postal" is to do it funny, let people laugh. I don't want a movie like Taxi Driver (1976) where a guy is killing everybody, too many movies like that. "Postal" is a movie where everybody is running amok, everyone has good reasons to run amok from the welfare office guy to the police officer. Coming up in two to three weeks, they will be really happy, like our cast . . . I think it will be hilarious.
I want to make good movies. Of course, I want to make entertaining movies for the younger audience, and this is a lot of times not working with film critics who are more into drama or art-house movies. But on the other hand, I always try to make solid movies.