Is This The End of Uwe Boll?

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on January 15, 2008

I woke up this morning to a heartwarming article from our friends at /Film about the glorious possibility that Uwe Boll’s career may be over. To many movie fans out there, this news is paramount, akin to the classic news stories of Truman’s defeat over Dewey, man landing on the moon and the Japanese surrender to end World War II.

After afflicting cinemas with the ultimate in celluloid crap, Uwe Boll might be done with movies – or at least big budget ones. How is this possible?

The answer lies in a nifty German law that allows film producers to set up tax shelters to fund their movies. I’m no German tax attorney, but my understanding of the law is that investors can sink money into a film and write that 100% of their loss on their taxes. In other words, if a movie loses money (like Boll’s films ultimately do), the investor is out no money. If the film makes money, they get a return.

Boll isn’t the only one taking advantage of this law, but he might be one of the only ones using it how it was intended. Hollywood studios routinely fund their films with German money, and it’s not uncommon for independent films to be finished with a German completion fund. If you’re one of those people who actually watch the credits, I’m sure you’ve seen the GmbH at the end of many films. It’s basically the German equivalent of a limited liability company.

Of course, the Germans made this law to help German filmmakers, not Hollywood. So, in January of 2006, the German legislature god rid of the tax shelter for foreign companies.

The only tarnished silver lining to this story is that according to Wikipedia, Boll is using the law as it was intended, so he might still be allowed to fund his films this way.

Still, with his latest turd In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale barely making $3 million and not even coming close to the top 10 in a mid-list January release, it’s doubtful he’s going to be able to carry another $60 million picture.

I’m sure religious folks around the country will be praying for the end of Uwe Boll. Even though he’s got films like Postal in the can, we should be able to get rid of him soon enough. After all, we all but eliminated smallpox, polio and the bubonic plague. The Boll vaccine can’t be far behind.

Read more articles by Kevin Carr