MOVIE NEWS – The director of so many legendarily lousy video game adaptations, Uwe Boll returns behind the camera with a new film about Al Capone’s nemesis, special agent Eliot Ness, previously played on screen by Kevin Costner.

German director Uwe Boll has officially announced his next project. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the news comes straight from Cannes, where Boll revealed that he is planning a $25 million film about Eliot Ness, the real-life agent played by Kevin Costner in Untouchables. Boll had previously said he was quitting filmmaking after years of arguing with critics over the quality of his films.

While The Man Who Defeated Al Capone focused on Ness’ pursuit of notorious gangster Al Capone, Boll’s film, titled Ness, will focus on the special agent’s “got away” case. Eliot Ness was also famous for pursuing an unknown serial killer in Cleveland, Ohio, nicknamed the “Kingsbury Run Butcher” by the press. Despite the best efforts of Ness and his team, the killer was never publicly identified.

While Boll often writes the screenplays for his films, Ness is being written by Whitney Scott Bain. Boll will direct and produce through Event Film, with Michael Roesch serving as executive producer. Boll says casting is underway and shooting is scheduled to begin in 2023.

Boll has received a lot of criticism from filmmakers throughout his career, which may be especially true for video game fans. Boll has adapted a number of different video games for the big screen, jumping onto the scene in 2003 with the universally panned House of the Dead. Since then he has made films based on video games such as Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne, Postal and Far Cry. All of them were terrible, and Boll became a laughing stock among gaming fans.

For his part, the German filmmaker feels that the success of his other films has vindicated him. He admitted to THR that several of his video game films have failed, but Boll also said that he hasn’t noticed too many complaints about his other films, which didn’t draw inspiration from different games. Boll points to his films’ reviews on Netflix as proof that people enjoy his work more than his critics suggest. As Boll explained:

“The people who say they hate my films have mostly only seen one, maybe two films, maybe [the flop] Far Cry or Alone in the Dark. They don’t mention my political films like Rampage, Assault on Wall Street or Attack on Darfur… I have about 15-20 films on Netflix. [I’m] a real filmmaker, I’ve made 34 films, many with big stars, there’s no denying it.”

Although he hasn’t released a film in the US since 2016’s Rampage, Boll has a new German film, Hanau, coming out in 2021. He says the experience reminded him why he “stopped making films in Germany,” which may have led him to fall back on making English-language films. In addition, Boll is working on a documentary series that will follow the motorcycle gang Banditos in Germany.

Source: HollywoodReporter