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Uwe Boll Sues Billy Zane

Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 9:50 am by Jami

No joke here folks, Uwe Boll really is suing Billy Zane for $700,000. In court papers filed yesterday, Boll claims that Zane suggested Romar Entertainment distribute BloodRayne and that Boll was promised it would open in 2,000 theaters. Boll handed over a $10 million advance for promotions, $900,000 of which was paid to Zane and his friend James Schramm at Romar. Come opening night, BloodRayne showed in only 950 theaters. The travesty went on to earn $4 million worldwide. The film cost $25 million to make. I suspect it hasn’t made up much of that in DVD sales.

If the charges turn out to be true, this is more of an indictment against Zane than Boll. Sure, Boll is box office poison. The only money he steals is form the morons who finance his picture and they’re just double dumb for continuing to do so (I think it has something to do with the German government or something. I think they have major subsidies for the arts. Don’t quote me on that, haven’t done a background check). Sounds like Zane and Schramm picked an easy target who no one would have much sympathy for and grabbed some easy cash. Boll makes it hard to have any bit of sympathy for him. And I don’t. And I suppose you could say that Zane was just looking out for himself because he may have rightly lacked confidence in the film. But that’s some pretty cold shit.

[Via Hollywood Reporter]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under Movies, Dumb Ass. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “Uwe Boll Sues Billy Zane”

  1. AvatarVonKraut
    Posted: May 1st, 2008 at 11:47 am
    1

    Billy Zane will be fine. All he has to do is actually show a copy of that terribly bad movie to the judge and he will be awarded

  2. AvatarSteve
    Posted: May 1st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
    2

    Eh, as much as I hate Boll’s movies, I think I’ll have to side with him on this one.

    From what I read, Boll paid for something and got less than half of what he was promised. I highly doubt that more theaters would have made that much difference in revenue, but it’s still a raw deal.

    Of course, I’m not in the industry and there may very well be some clause in the contract that allows distributers to show the film in however many theaters they want. But it still sounds like Zane was taking a page from Enron’s “Big Book of Business Bullshit”.

  3. AvatarTom
    Posted: May 1st, 2008 at 5:06 pm
    3

    The “morons who finance his pictures” actually get a huge tax write-off for doing so:

    “Boll is able to acquire funding thanks to German tax laws that reward investments in film. The law allows investors in German-owned films to write off 100% of their investment as a tax deduction; it also allows them to invest borrowed money and write off any fees associated with the loan. The investor is then only required to pay taxes on the profits made by the movie; if the movie loses money, the investor gets a tax writeoff.” (from Wikipedia article on Boll)

    So, the German government wins because the money stays in Germany and doesn’t go overseas, the investors and Uwe Boll win because they get a tax write-off, and the viewing public loses from being exposed to abhorrent excuses for motion pictures. Boll may have been cheated here on paper, but any potential profits lost are really not the point.

  4. AvatarWayne
    Posted: May 2nd, 2008 at 8:45 am
    4

    Tom’s got it right, there was a huge tax loophole in Germany that enabled the financing of his films. It is my understanding that the loophole has been eliminated, but I don’t know that for sure. I’m sure he’ll still find a way to spew his dreck on the screen somehow.

    As far as the lawsuit is concerned, there’s two sides to the equation: the individual movie theatres and chains have to agree to show it. If chains have smarted up and decided they’re not going to show Boll, then that’s that. It’s possible that regardless of how much the distribution company tried, they only found 950 theatres willing to show it. So what if Zane got a commission? Does he own the distributor? Is he the marketing director? In the end, I don’t think Boll will have much of a case.

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