1. It's a conspiracy against bad films!

Posted at 7:47PM on May 16th 2008 by GL

2. Regarding that poll: I interpret it as there are way less than 1 million people who know who Boll is.

Posted at 9:37PM on May 16th 2008 by Franklin

3. Dear Uwe,
It's not a conspiracy, you're films do so poorly that the theatre owners loose money on your films. From now on your films will be lucky to get straight to DVD releases and your video game films are just going to be Sci-Fi channel movies of the week. Sorry, you're just not as good as you seem to think you are, I don't know if it's flat out arrogance or if you are like the poor kids that show up to American Idol auditions thinking they are the best singers in the world because their mothers said they are.
I wish you the best in all your endeavors however I feel that if you continue to pursue directing you will be very disappointed in the result.
Sincerely,
Boo

Posted at 10:27PM on May 16th 2008 by the_boo

4. My point is that prior to In the Name of the King, despite having numerous failures, he had no trouble securing a semi-large release for it. That one failure wouldn't change it so that only four theatres would accept his next movie.

I mean, lets face the facts here. His movies do bad. But for almost 100% of the theatres to turn his film down is ridiculous. It points to censorship. Theatres in my neighborhood are still playing 2 month old flops (Run Fatboy Run, Superhero Movie) that probably get a few audience members a day. Postal might not have gotten the 1500 theatres he expected, but it should have had no trouble securing 100 at least.

Postal was banned from these theatres because of the content. Full frontal male nudity, lampooning 9/11, babies being shot. That's why. If not, theatres would have at least allowed him to rent the space, as they would make guaranteed money off of that.

Posted at 1:55AM on May 18th 2008 by DylanG

5. see that's the thing, it wasn't banned, it was never picked up. It's not censorship if the theatre owners know there will be backlash from the customer base because they chose to carry the film. Uwe's business model doesn't work anymore now that his tax shelter is gone. He couldn't afford to rent the auditoriums to screen his film in anyway, in order to rent a house most chains charge you for every ticket in the auditorium. That means an average size auditrium would cost him $27,000 just for the weekend, just one. You can break down the math from there, but the money just doesn't exist. It would be censorship if someone told the theatres they couldn't play the movie, but that's not the case, they CHOSE not to because there is no money for them, remember he doesn't have a distributor anymore so there is no-one making the kind of deals for him that most distributors make such as the "you're gonna lose money on this film, but we'll give you the big one at a better rate" deal. I have a fairly intimate knowledge of these systems. I can assure you, the decision is purely financial.

Posted at 11:24AM on May 18th 2008 by the_boo

6. It wasn't banned by the most literal sense of the word, but it was boycotted and it was due to the content, not financial reasons. As I've stated, theatres in my neighborhood are still playing movies like "Run Fatboy Run" and "Deception". I guarantee "Postal" will make more on a per theatre average this weekend than those are. I'd buy your claim about it being financial if it wasn't for the fact that I work in a theatre and they constantly get movies that are obviously going to bomb. Hell, we got a movie called Kenny about a plumber, which got about ten people per showing and it was from a no-name distributer that couldn't have bargained down prices.

I can't speak on the rental business (I know nothing about that), but I'm positive this has to do with the content of the film, and not the financial aspects.

Posted at 3:40PM on May 23rd 2008 by DylanG

7. This has everything to do with the content of the film. In the Name of the King had no trouble getting into theatres a few months ago, despite Boll's track record. That one failure wouldn't be enough to have every theatre chain boycott his film only a few months later.

I think that this has to do with the controversial opening sequence, in which 9/11 is mocked. That's probably why it was boycott and it's a shame, as it looks like a hilarious movie.

Posted at 1:25AM on May 17th 2008 by DylanG

8. It may have opened on just over 1,000 screens, but it only has grosses posted for 2 weekends. That means the theates and the studios all lost money on that movie. It has nothing to do with some grand censorship conspiracy and everything to do with him not being worth the paper he's printed on.

Posted at 4:27PM on May 17th 2008 by the_boo

9. Although I will never see this movie, I feel kinda sorta just a wee bit bad for him.

Posted at 11:33AM on May 17th 2008 by Jen

10. "Any multiplex in the U.S. should have space for us, but they're afraid."

He's absolutely right. They're afraid of wasting one of their auditoriums on a film that won't make a dime, especially during the early summer season when there's actual money to be made.

Posted at 2:50PM on May 17th 2008 by Scott Weinberg

11. Poor Boll! Hopefully his next, and mercifully last, video game movie, Far Cry, will at least make it into half a theater.

BTW, I predicted all of this "Postal" stuff over a year ago:
http://community.allgames.com/profiles/blog/show?id=502933%3ABlogPost%3A15273

Posted at 2:17PM on May 19th 2008 by airtoast

12. I have seen this movie. I went to Tuscon and caught a screening of it a couple of months ago. This movie is HILARIOUS!! I know Uwe's past movies have given a new definition to the word "suck" but this one is unlike all of them. And this movie WAS picked up by the theatres and then subsequently dropped because they got to see it. The company that created the game (Running With Scissors) was the ones that were going to rent the screens. The money was offered and they still turned it down. This was not a financial decision but I don't think it's a conspiracy against Uwe either. I'm positive that nobody wants the backlash of showing a movie that makes Bush and Osama friends that planned the attacks together. Not to mention the 9/11 scene. Would you want to be working in a theatre in New York when that movie opened?

All in all, I can't blame the theatres for their decision. It's a GREAT movie but a bit to contraversal for the up tight masses.

Posted at 5:36PM on May 23rd 2008 by David