Uwe Boll announces retirement from film, and there was much rejoicing

October 26th 2016, 4:56pm

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

So apparently Uwe Boll, director of such classics as HOUSE OF THE DEAD, ALONE IN THE DARK, and POSTAL, will be quitting the movie business.

Yay!

Now, wait, that's a bit harsh. As a lover of bad movies, it's a shame we'll be losing one of the greats. And, for what it's worth, it did seem like he wanted to make good movies and had a lot of passion. This is especially true of his recently politically-charged films like RAMPAGE: PRESIDENT DOWN and DARFUR, which were definitely trying to say something (say what exactly, no one but Boll is sure. But still). However, he did splice in random videogame footage in the HOUSE OF THE DEAD movie for no f*cking reason, so screw him.

Anyway, here's what he had to say about his early retirement (which unlike Kevin Smith or Steven Soderbergh, might actually stick):

“The market is dead, you don’t make any money anymore on movies because the DVD and Blu Ray market worldwide has dropped 80 per cent in the last three years. That is the real reason; I just cannot afford to make movies. I can’t go back to student filmmaking because I have made so many movies in my life, and I can’t make cheaper and cheaper movies at my age. It’s a shame. I would be happy to make movies but it is just not financially profitable.”

Uwe Boll has reportedly been self-funding his films since 2005, but as he alludes to, the advent of streaming has made profits in home sales almost obsolete. So while this is a story about the loss of a filmmaker, it is also a sobering reminder of the changing film landscape. This new distribution model disproportionately affects lower-to-mid budget films, making it less-and-less profitable to produce such films, especially those with a unique point-of-view (as those kinds of films rarely make a profit theatrically, if they even get a theatrical release to begin with). So we'll see how the death of the home market plays out in the future.

But enough about that. The good news is there will be no more DUNEGON SEIGE movies!