According to the Hollywood Reporter, producer-director Uwe Boll has signed a three-picture distribution deal with Freestyle Releasing.
The deal covers Boll’s adaptations of videogames Postal and Dungeon Siege, as well as an original property called Seed. Although Dungeon Siege was filmed first, Postal will precede it in release, and is slated to hit North American theaters on September 28. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is slated to come out on January 18 of next year, while Seed is expected to arrive sometime in early 2008.
According to Freestyle co-president Marke Borde, A Dungeon Siege Tale will be the company’s “tentpole” movie, with an initial prints and advertising (P&A) budget of $20 million. Boll is providing P&A financing for all three movies through private funding. “Freestyle is really getting behind this picture,” Borde said. “We’ve hired support staff just to market this picture, and we plan on reaching out to both traditional media as well as video game media to take full advantage of the Microsoft ‘Dungeon Siege‘ video game.”
“It’s a pretty big picture and it plays great,” he added. “I don’t chase movies based on video games and any pre-awareness that those franchises might have with an audience. I chase movies that are good.”
Boll, a German director, producer and screenwriter, has often adapted videogames to films. Along with Postal and Dungeon Siege, his past work includes Bloodrayne and Alone in the Dark, while Far Cry and Alone in the Dark 2 are both in pre-production. His first movie was the German drama Barschel – Mord in Genf, released in 1993; since then, his most notable contribution to the cultural lexicon has been beating the crap out of Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka. He finances his own films through private investment in his Boll KG production company, which allows him to continue making movies despite his disastrous inability to do so.
For some reason, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale features a fairly high-profile cast, including Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Ron Perlman, John Rhys-Davies and Burt Reynolds.
