Boll sues BloodRayne distributor

Controversial game-to-film director sues company that handled vampire flick's US theatrical run.

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As gruesome a spectacle as BloodRayne the movie might have been, a similarly morbid amount of interest surrounds the film's theatrical run, openly referred to as a "debacle" in trade mag Variety. The plot thickens today, as the film's director, Uwe Boll (House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark), has filed suit against Romar Entertainment, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Boll's suit reportedly alleges that Romar breached its contract with the director by failing to release the film on 2,000 screens, refusing to pay the producers their share of the gross proceeds, and not using the $10 million that Boll's production company had given them for promotion and advertising of the film.

Boll confirmed the suit for GameSpot, but directed all questions about it to his lawyer, who had not returned a request for comment as of press time. However, Romar Entertainment cofounder James Schramm was willing to discuss the matter with GameSpot, particularly that Boll filed the suit because Romar was planning a suit of its own.

Schramm said that Boll removed the Romar name and logo from the credits, trailer, and packaging of the DVD release of Bloodrayne, and that Boll fraudulently put his own name in place of Schramm's on the presenting credits. Schramm also charged that Boll violated agreements with Romar when he refused to pay the company 1 percent of the film's DVD sales, failed to make the film's talent available for press junkets, and would not allow BloodRayne to be screened for critics.

"He had such bad publicity that I felt bad, and I wanted to help him out," Schramm said. "We made no money on this movie. Nothing. We lost. This was a complete financial loss. And he has the audacity to remove us off [the credits]."

As for Boll's accusations, Schramm said his company upheld its end of the bargain.

"He was informed months prior to the release that January 6 was not a good day for him to release a movie and he will not get 2,000 screens," Schramm explained. "And he said, 'I don't care.' Get me whatever you can get me."

As for the film's marketing, Schramm said Boll was "very happy" with it and had agreed to have the company distribute two more of his game films, including the announced adaptation of Postal. However, if those movies do get a theatrical release, Romar obviously won't be involved.

"His behavior is so out of whack, I don't even care what other movies he's doing," Schramm said. "I don't want to have anything to do with his company or him...Hollywood doesn't need someone like that. Hollywood doesn't need someone who's coming in from another country and demanding their way of doing things, and then in dealing with honest people like us, just taking advantage of us. He complains so much about people stealing from him and taking from him, and the one and only company that's left in Hollywood, us, that have done good business with him, now he's screwing us."

Schramm said he's more disappointed than mad at Boll, but also said that the whole affair could serve as a warning sign to other distributors.

"Hopefully this is a sign to everybody in Hollywood of someone not to do business with," Schramm said.

According to Schramm, Romar has been in contact with Boll's attorney, and the two sides are going to discuss possible settlements.

150 Comments

  • Juggernaut140

    Posted Jun 3, 2007 3:04 pm PT

    house of the dead sucked so bad. This russian guy gives all these teenagers desert eagles machine guns and grenades, and they suddenly know how to use them. And everytime someone died it would show them in the woods and the screen would go red. Then I "think" there was a swordfight at the end. Oh yeah and the resident movies also suck, it's like matrix with zombies. And yeah IllPhill you're right about that party, if you look closely they even have a baked goods stand.

  • nature-elf

    Posted Mar 14, 2007 11:45 pm PT

    tHE MOVIE IS SO CRAPPY...IT DOESN'T EVEN FOLLOW THE GAMES STORYLINE...AND TO THINK A SEQUAL IS COMING OUT

  • chainsawhop

    Posted Jan 17, 2007 6:16 am PT

    they better sue his ass. that movie was so much crap.

  • Karjah

    Posted Sep 14, 2006 9:54 pm PT

    What is wonder is...who keeps seeing this crap....

    Seriously he funds a lot of his own projects that money has to come from somewhere. Who's stupid enough to give it to him?

  • theartist111

    Posted Aug 27, 2006 1:38 am PT

    i think for the most part the reason why his movies sucked so bad was because he chose three of the worst games 2 make movies on like seriously alone in the dark was a terrible game and then house of the dead would have been soooooooooo much better had it stuck to the games original storyline but noooooo lets just make it another redundant zombie movie with a bunch of teenager fighting for there lives on an ISLAND OF ALL PLACES!!!!!(jeez like that hasn't been done b4) then he makes bloodrayne a not so popular game to be honest he probaly just makes movies on games he likes and since its boll he has no taste in games
    but we also have 2 come to terms with the fact that most movies based of games suck just think of the DOOM movie and except for FFVIIAC and RE1 and RE2A all of em sucked and if boll ever gets signed again watch him go and make POSTAL based on the most pointless game ever 2 be crreated with absolutley no plot and ofcourse he thinks its a great idea in then end i think ALL director producer etc etc should make movies based on poular games so they actualy make money also i think sony made the worst mistake bt not putting FFVIIAC in theaters they would have made MILLIONS

  • gamefreakwill

    Posted Jun 28, 2006 7:44 pm PT

    Boll needs to get his act together. First he wouldn't let critics view this film. What? Was he afraid they'd give it a bad review? Well it doesn't matter!
    If he plans on making any more movies like Bloodrayne, he better put them in theatres, otherwise, he's dead. He better release In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege tale because it looks very good, but if he doesn't, its going to be a disaster.
    Otherwise, if he can't improve, his films will cause him to go poor slowly, and he would have to actually make an ORIGINAL film and not a Video Game film.

  • Bahamut50

    Posted Jun 8, 2006 12:12 pm PT

    as long as he never directs a high quality game movie, i dont care

  • Silverblade-GR

    Posted Jun 8, 2006 2:32 am PT

    @omi1 This is a poor excuse for him. Do you think the New Line people really "approved" anything P.J. did with the LoTR films? No, mostly they bit the bullet and let him do whatever he wanted to, no matter how crazy (like editing/adding/reworking scenes up to the last possible minute). I swear the production guy from New Line had much more hair when the first film was made than he had in the end. But it worked! All New Line did was approve 3 pictures for him and a huge budget instead of the 2 he was trying desperately to push to studios (most studios wanted to make just one).
    All Boll's producers should have done was never finance him in the first place. They even try to convince us they did it to "help the poor guy"? Come ON, who are you kidding?!

  • thocom

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 2:10 pm PT

    ...omi1, do a search right now on Wikepedia and look up Uwe Boll... He IS the "higher up executive"...

  • omi1

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 1:01 pm PT

    OK yeh the man has had a bad run of video games to movies. I personally don't think he's a bad director but I think that he should choose a different outlet on the type of movies that he makes.
    Uwe Bol, I didn't hate BloodRayne (dug the jail scene, noone else just wants to admit they dug it too), I didn't hate Alone in the Dark, it was horrible at the same time it wasn't great, I could honestly use a sequel I thought Christian Slater made a good Ed Karnby. House of the Dead I can't comment on, I didn't see it.
    Try making different kinds of films, but please stay away from the video game to movie franchise.
    Also it's not Uwe Bol's fault, I don't think he writes the stuff and obviously someone has to approve the script. So instead of shooting the man who made the crap; get on the higher up executive people who approved the crap.

  • VincentXtreme

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 12:40 pm PT

    Romar should be glad their name isn't on the movie, this way no one will know that they helped make it. Haha.

  • alvixx

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 11:26 am PT

    I hate you Uwe Boll!!!!

  • hooliganyouth

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 11:21 am PT

    Maybe Boll can make a movie about Jack Thompson.

  • gohantech00

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 10:15 am PT

    Welp, I think what we got here is the next Ed Wood......

  • wingchunstudent

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 9:49 am PT

    Maybe if he quits making shoddy movies people would go see them. I really don't think people didn't go see it because it wasn't at alot of theatres. It was because Uwe directed it.

  • Timstuff

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 9:32 am PT

    Boll should get Jack Thompson as his lawyer. We all know they both hate videogames.

  • axia_777

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 9:08 am PT

    With this move Uwe, your carrer will be over, and we can all cheer because you will be gone!!! YAHHHH!!! NO MORE BOLL CRAP!!! No studio on earth will touch you now that you have sued one!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

    Maybe he knows he is screwed and this is his only way of getting any cash from the situation.

    And @ VelMonkey, it is NOT your bad, it is TRUE!!!!!

  • VelMonkey

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 8:36 am PT

    ALL OF HIS MOVIES SUCK b@LLZ... THIS GUY NEEDS TO JUST QUIT BURN EVERY COPY OF EVERY MOVIE HE'S EVER MADE ....my bad

  • ReyWing

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 8:34 am PT

    i can't believe i watched House of the Dead in the evening for full price!!! i swear i could feel the nails borrowing thru my skin every time i saw a videogame transition. ARRRRRGH!

  • BadFortuneAndre

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 8:17 am PT

    Uwe Boll has no talent, and should choke.

  • RequiemDogma

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 7:09 am PT

    Roflmao. What a jerk, instead of producing a worthwhile film, he'd rather make a POS and blame someone else for its lack of worth or popularity.

  • soulmanpt

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 6:43 am PT

    The commericals for Bloodrayne never even named the star by name. This could've been a good vehicle for Kristanna Loken, but instead the commercial named Ben Kingsley and recognized him as an oscar winner, as if the shock of haivng an oscar winner in a Boll film was more note worthy than the title character's actor. I didn't even know who she was until I looked up the movie on IMDB.

    Boll's priorities are out of wack. If you can stomach the price of admission, I urge you to rent the DVD of Alone in the Dark. If you listen to the director commentary in the last or second to last chapter before the credits, Boll calls the American audience idots. Talk about blaiming everyone and everything else for your own problems!

    Incidentally, if MST3K ever did House of the Dead, the tagline at the end of the show would have to be "Liberty, NO!!!" where the asian girl in the american flag bikini gets mauled by zombies.

  • EugeneE3RD

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 4:45 am PT

    I think that Uwe Boll is sueing the Bloodrayne distributor because of the fact that his movie failed. Uwe Boll, it ain't the distrubutor who is at fault, it is you because you can direct a good movie, all of your movies based on video games suck.

  • Green4link

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 3:30 am PT

    Every game "related" movie he makes, well not to be mean but they Suck! what the hell is this guy thinking, the movies are senseless and stupid, and the reasons to sue are stupid, anyways he was the one who killed the movie... But anyways nobody cares, What the heck is wrong with our films these days? They are getting more stupid every single year. Oh... the dissapointment.....

  • Andron666

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 2:34 am PT

    Maybe we can look forward to not seeing any more Boll films

  • Da_Mainman_3

    Posted Jun 7, 2006 1:02 am PT

    Ever since my brain imploded when I tried to follow the plot of Alone in the Dark, I've had an understandable dislike of Boll's videogame movie conversions. You would have to pay me £20 MINIMUM to get me to watch Bloodrayne, unless I could invite my friends along to suffer through and/or laugh at it.

    If Paul W.S. Anderson can pull off the Castlevania movie, then I might still see a future for this dark corner of the movie world. And if that happens to bomb, then there's always the Metroid movie due out this year...

    ...or Animal Crossing...

  • DrKill09

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 11:46 pm PT

    The Uwe Bolla virus speaks...

    Sorry, dude, but the only person to blame for your movie being utter crap is YOU! Get over it. If you want to do better, do this thing they used to call DIRECTING.

  • ghostadv

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 11:32 pm PT

    Wow does Boll suck

  • gdogg4210

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 10:43 pm PT

    with 10 million to give away, why not just hire someone else with actual talent to make movies for him

  • MSM2

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 10:07 pm PT

    Hmmm....maybe it's cause your movies suck arse there Uwe.

  • LOLO_BOND

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 9:33 pm PT

    take bloodrayne as the same level of underworld evolution ... just boring from the beggining

  • dhmy2kgto

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 9:20 pm PT

    Just like a soup opera, haha

  • stubby_01

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 9:13 pm PT

    uwe 'toilet' boll. haha

  • rootATdarkstar

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 9:07 pm PT

    Oh you guys. You're so silly. You are all saying Mr. Boll sucks, when in fact, it is EVERYONE ELSE WHO DOES!!! Mr Boll is such a visionary, that we (his intended audience) do not understand the utter awesomeness of Boll. We should all be on our knees, begging Uwe to let us in on his masterful plan of ****ING UP EVERY MOVIE HE'S EVER ATTACHED HIS NAME TO!!! Mr. Boll needs to shut the hell up.

  • Charlie2688

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 9:05 pm PT

    Please people just look for him in wikipedia and read about his "ideas for what a videogame movie should be about" and please don’t go directly so shoot yourselves.....HE IS AN IDIOT....a clueless one that is even worse....

    Thanks...

  • LordGamer0001

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 8:43 pm PT

    never gets old.

  • LordGamer0001

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 8:42 pm PT

    never gets old.

  • neoand12

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 8:26 pm PT

    Boll is so lame, why would he do something like that?

  • umbrae

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 8:22 pm PT

    He should be used to people not seeing his movies by now... he's just mad because his tax break is gone now.

  • i_love_my_ds

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 7:45 pm PT

    uwe, you're dumb......... your movies suck.

  • rbarahona

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 7:32 pm PT

    I still wonder why does Uwe Boll keeps making video game movies if people really don't like them...

  • magnum2k6

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 7:12 pm PT

    Actually has anyone here ever seen the movie "the producers"? What Boll is doing is like that. He purposely makes flops and exploits loops in German tax laws, that's how he keeps getting investors. Thankfully this hole in tax laws will close within two years or something. Hope that clarifies his crappiness.

  • eckertt001

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 7:09 pm PT

    Hopefully he ticks enough people off we wont have to suffer with his "movies" anymore...

  • kaboombo

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 6:55 pm PT

    Every gamespot employee and gamespot fan without a doubt could develop vastly superior films to this imbeciles crap. A child born of brother and sister dropped on its head missing chromosones could do better. Ewe Boll is a janitor that was given a camera as a joke and he took himself seriously when in fact he was the butt of a joke all along.

    Quit making movies and go back to your janitorial job Boll. I hate your "movies."

  • Crimson_Raven

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 6:49 pm PT

    Q: How do you say, Just flush your cash down the toilet in german?

    A: Uwe Boll

  • Crimson_Raven

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 6:45 pm PT

    Please someone stop this man from making crappy movies. Games may have a better silver screen future if Boll was declared insane and locked away for life without parole.

  • SpaceNinjaDino

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 6:19 pm PT

    I watched Bloodrayne last weekend. I tried to be optimistic going into it since Uwe said it was his best film. It was a really bad movie. How did Uwe take the hotness out of Kristanna? The on-set effects were terrible. The post production was great, but it could not make up for the basic flaws. The montage at the end was laughable out takes that were slammed in there.

  • illphil

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 6:18 pm PT

    Some One on the boards mentioned that "BloodRayne" was on the level of such cinematic masterpeices as Elektra, and Daredevil... The only responce that i have is that every director and producer has made a movie that isn't good, but Boll does it constantly, and then on top of that he ruin's good game's names in the process, i however, agree with the other message on here saying that Schramm and the company he represents should be happy that he removed their names from the movie, after seeing the results of House of the dead i'm sure that some of the actors went into hiding, especally when Boll allowed footage of the game to be mindlessly edited into the film at the end, not to mention the weirdness involving the sailors in that movies. Or how about the "party of the decade that all of the people in the movie were trying to get to? it was the lamest thing ever, and sadly the sullied sega's name by having banners all over the party, i mean i have been to partys at chucky cheese's when i was 9 that kicked more ass then the party in HoTD... but enought ranting from me point is his work is so bad i think it gave me cancer

  • adolfogomez

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 6:13 pm PT

    why wont this guy just go away and stop giving videogame ip such a bad name.. BloodRayne was crap, he cant blame Romar for not being able to sell his trash!!!!!, just call his attorney, and tell him the truth.

    THE MOVIE WAS GARBAGE!!!!

  • JMattM

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 6:08 pm PT

    Uwe Boll sure has some balls doing this. One of, if not the worst director ever, is given a pity chance, blows it, then demands something be done because he plain stinks at making films? I don't buy it.

    He shouldn't be suing Hollywood. In fact, it should be the exact opposite. In that business, it's not all that great to bite the hand that feeds you.

    He was lucky for the movie to be realeased on the amount of screens it got. Test screenings are an important part of whether a movie suceeds or not. I mean really, what was he expecting?

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