Over the years, Uwe Boll has participated in a bunch of our critics polls, he’s a reader of this site, so let’s all be nice to him, or, at least, I’ll try to be.
The German-born Boll is mostly known for his ill-received 2000s adaptations of video game franchises, which were all critical and commercial disasters. He retired in 2016 to become a restaurateur, but has now returned to filmmaking with “First Shift” — the glorious trailer.
A few years ago, Boll proclaimed himself to be “the only genius in the whole fucking [movie] business" and that other directors such as Michael Bay and Eli Roth are "fucking retards"
How could he not have such high confidence in himself? Especially after releasing 2011’s “Auschwitz,” which he’s proclaimed as his “masterpiece.” It certainly was the most serious and sober film of his career, a peculiar 73-minute holocaust movie that only a filmmaker like Boll could pull off.
Boll’s past films, “House of the Dead” and “Alone in the Dark”, both appear on IMDb's "Bottom 100" film list. He once called one of his major detractors, Ain’t it Cool’s Harry Knowles, a “retard.”
When Wired Magazine published a negative review of “Postal”, Boll responded with an infamous email:
You don’t understand anything about movies and 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.
This all led to Boll “challenging” his critics to "put up or shut up". In June 2006, he challenged his five harshest critics each to a 10-round boxing match. One of them was Jeff Sneider. Boll won all five bouts.
On October 2016, Boll claimed that “Rampage: President Down” was his last film, yet here we are, seven year later, and “First Shift” is set to be released, most likely on VOD, in the coming months.