The well-known German director and producer Uwe Boll would love to make a film sequel to the 2007 video game adaptation Postal. The money was supposed to come from a crowdfunding campaign, which, however, had to be ended after just a few days.
What do I need to know about Postal? The Running with Scissors video game series began in 1997 and made a name for itself primarily through its depiction of violence and anarchic humor. Postal 2 from 2003 is still banned in Germany today.
In October 2007, Postal, a video game adaptation of the same name, hit cinemas. The person responsible for the film was a certain Uwe Boll, who had already tried his hand at various other game adaptations at the time – such as “House of the Dead”, “Alone in the Dark” and “BloodRayne”.
The cast included Zack Ward, Ralf Moeller, Michael Paré, JK Simmons and Uwe Boll himself. The reward for the effort: the 2009 Golden Raspberry in the category “Worst Director” and a collection of poor reviews, around 0.5 out of 5 stars from our colleagues at Filmstarts. Nevertheless, looking back, Postal is certainly one of the better films in the German director’s career.
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Crowdfunding for Postal 2
What was planned for Postal 2? Although Uwe Boll’s last video game adaptation (Swords of the King – The Final Mission from 2014) was a few years ago, this is not because the director has lost interest in the genre. For example, he owned the rights for Fear Effect and Baldur’s Gate for a time, but nothing came of these two projects.
A few days ago, the director tried the other way round: he had his podcast and filming partner Gary Otto start a crowdfunding campaign for Postal 2 on indiegogo.com. The goal: 2.255 million euros. What Boll apparently didn’t have, however, were the rights to the film adaptation.
Vince Desiderio, CEO of Running with Scissors, commented on the campaign via X as follows: “The official position of RWS is that we do NOT support this crowdfunding. I have no idea who this Gary Otto even is.”
Desiderio was not only annoyed that RWS was not contacted in advance. He also criticized the small print in the crowdfunding campaign.
Boll and Otto stated that they would like to use the donated money to realize “California Fried Movie” (a sequel to Boll’s first film “German Fried Movie” from 1991) if the final sum is not raised or if another unforeseeable obstacle arises.
As the icing on the cake, Uwe Boll explained on X that the 2.2 million euros would not actually be enough to make Postal 2. After the successful campaign ended, he would raise another 2.2 million euros so that the film could be made properly. But the director did not explain where the money would come from.
What is the status quo of the campaign? Those responsible at RWS must have reacted accordingly behind the scenes. After just a few days, Gary Otto released a statement that they would officially switch from Postal 2 to “California Fried Movie”. Shortly afterwards, the campaign was completely discontinued and its name changed to “Cancelled all pledges refunded we had no choice”.
According to Otto, the 767 euros raised to date will be paid back to the 16 supporters. Apparently, however, there was criticism of the whole campaign on social media. Both Gary Otto’s X-account and the X-account of Boll and Otto’s podcast project are no longer accessible.
Uwe Boll commented on this on YouTube as follows: “We had to shut down the campaign, it’s just not worth it. I think, especially on Twitter, some people should apologize who insulted Gary Otto, who did everything he had to do based on my instructions to him. […] Now there’s only me on Twitter.”
Finally, Uwe Boll explains that despite this setback, he would like to make a Postal 2. A final sentence from Vince Desiderio fits in with this: “For the record, I like Uwe and long for the day when our fans can see a new Postal film, but not financed in this way.”
Would you be interested in a sequel to Postal? Tell us in the comments! It wasn’t that long ago that Uwe Boll looked down on a failed video game adaptation with some malice: German trash director looks back on Borderlands film with glee: “Now you wish I had directed it”