WHAT'S NEW: There's a holiday-ready, cruise-control part of us that feels like skipping this part of Defamer Attractions, but again, Indiana Jones 4 is not the only new release demanding attention. That said, with $26 million already in the bank on Thursday, and with the Indiana Jones PlunderWatch Projection Ticker speeding toward $9.5 trillion, we should probably just get it out of the way. It's easily going to win the weekend, but can it displace four-day weekend champ Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($139.7 million) and five-day king Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith ($172 million) as the all-time biggest box-office bow? We doubt it; there's too much cultural competition to overcome the 19-year generation gap. Nevertheless, we're still calling Indy to break $110 million by Sunday and $140 million by Monday, thus promising a fifth installment set in 1967 and pitting our hero and his greaser sidekick/offspring against their toughest adversaries yet: Filthy, filthy hippies.

Also opening: John Cusack's Iraq satire/career nadir War, Inc.; the here-and-gone Jonathan Rhys Meyers drama The Children of Huang Shi; and the acclaimed Vice Magazine-produced doc Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

THE BIG LOSER: Despite early reads positioning Postal in the same critical class as What Happens in Vegas, Speed Racer and Sex and the City, it won't likely be enough to boost Uwe Boll's latest clusterfuck to anything approaching respectable at the box office. Granted, he's on four screens as opposed to, say, Indy 4's 4,200, but if Postal's per-screen average breaks $8,000, we'll volunteer to be the guy eating his own puke in Boll's next film. What? Stoic has already been shot? Whatever. The point is: It will not happen.

THE UNDERDOG: Fatih Akin's 2005 culture-clash stunner Head On captured audiences about as abruptly and unforgettably as its title suggested, and his follow-up, The Edge of Heaven, revisits his volatile Turkish/German roots with no less intensity. Which, considering its scope, is a bit of a marvel: A elderly Turkish man invites a compatriot prostitute into the home he shares with his son in Bremen. It ends... poorly, with the son traveling to Istanbul to find the woman's 20-something daughter. She's embroiled in political actions there, expatriates herself to Germany seeking asylum, falls in love with another young woman, and then — horror of horrors! — is expelled back to prison in Turkey. The interwoven searches and tragedies that follow in Heaven make Babel look like an afterschool special — not for their violence or viciousness (though they have that, too), but for their stoicism and, ultimately, their unalloyed compassion. And in any case, we'd never reject anything featuring both lesbians and Turkish prison.

FOR SHUT-INS: New DVD's this week include National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, the latest terrible George Romero zombie entry Diary of the Dead, the Richard Gere/Claire Danes folly The Flock, and the long, long-awaited complete first season of The Bill Engvall Show.

So are we low-balling Indy's weekend plunder? Are we too generous? And is anybody actually planning to see Postal? Share your own plans, place your own bets and go ahead — tell your boss we said you could take Monday off!

Granted, everything will change as more reviews trickle in — but not necessarily for the worst. In any case, maybe Boll — not Roland Emmerich — is the ideal Euro-hack to helm that forthcoming $200 million Cusack apocalypse flick. At this rate, he may be Sony's only hope with the critics.

• 'Postal' [Rotten Tomatoes]

We don't necessarily believe for a second that Bay has green lit a boxing match with Uwe Boll, but that's kind of the best part: Within a few days we'll either see Boll sued for the unauthorized use of Bay's likeness to promote Postal, or we'll hear Bay is fighting Boll this fall — the culmination of a dream beating we've anticipated since way, way back six days ago. (And Bay will still sue Boll in the interim.) We literally cannot lose.

A natural opportunist, Boll is hedging his bets in the Los Angeles County courts, where he and Zane will also square off in a civil contest seeking restitution for a distribution deal gone bad —

Director Uwe Boll has sued actor Billy Zane in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming he's owed at least $700,000 in revenues from the 2006 boxoffice flop Bloodrayne.

Boll claims in the April 30 filing that Zane was the one who suggested Romar Entertainment handle distribution of the film. Zane and Romar principal James Schramm allegedly promised the film would open in 2,000 theaters and that a $10 million advance from Boll would be used for advertising and promotion. But at least $900,000 was paid out to Zane and Schramm and the movie opened in only 950 theaters, Boll claims.

• Uwe Boll Sues Billy Zane [THR]

• Postal [Movieset]

[I]t's my message to Michael Bay, Michael, in between your pool parties in LA or your casting sessions with the strippers you should start training now. And I'm sure you look good, you look thin. I saw you at the Hollywood Film Festival, I think you're a fit guy and you do like private karate Asia bullshit crap fighting stuff in LA where you think you're super cool that you do that with your 500 bucks per hour trainer.

So let's meet in the ring in September or October. Pay-per-view. Mandalay Bay. Las Vegas. Twelve rounds of boxing. Boll against Bay.

If we're not sick of either man by then, we'll consider attending. Meanwhile, the Uwe Boll Movie Challenge is one step closer to legitimacy this morning as we hear that Boll himself — who classically derided the usage of ketchup, little brothers and "bullshit name[s] out of the Internet" among his haters' own film oeuvres — has signed on to judge short films employing those criteria.

Two days after laying his challenge down, proprietor Matthew Dessem tells Defamer HQ that there are still no prizes, but he's being hard on himself: Think of the distinction of having your work ridiculed by a man whom 224,285 people (and counting) have asked to stop making movies. "This is a big step toward my ultimate goal: becoming a footnote on Uwe Boll's Wikipedia entry," Dessem adds. We're glad to help, Matt! Now if we could just find a little brother, our own filmmaking fantasies could be complete.

• Boll/Bay Showdown [Movieset]
• Now With Even More Uwe Boll! [UBMC]

To compete in the Uwe Boll Movie Challenge, you must create a short film that meets the following guidelines:

-It must be made at home.
-You must use ketchup.
-You must use a little brother.
-You must not use some bullshit nickname out of the internet.
-You have until May 16th.

Beyond that, anything goes. You don't have to use Mini-DV. If you don't have a little brother, you can use someone else's. ... The filmmakers Boll has called out (Michael Haneke, Tom Twyker, Gus Van Sant, Steven Spielberg, Eli Roth, George Clooney, and especially Michael Bay) are encouraged to enter.

Naturally, in keeping with the full trajectory of a Uwe Boll enterprise, there are no awards to be won, except maybe an honorary petition to urge the winning filmmakers to stop making movies. Hell, we'd take it.

• The Uwe Boll Movie Challenge

I don't even know why you get off on me like crazy because I'm not in the Hollywood system. I'm the opposite basically, and maybe this is the reason that you all hate me so much, because I prove that you can do it outside the system and you can come up with cheap excuse why you never make it. You are not able to make more than your mini-DV video at home with ketchup and your little brother, so I really think you should wake up at one point and you should put your jealous situation away. And if you write me, you don't write me with some bullshit nicknames out of the internet. Write me with your name and address so that I can track you down and rip you apart. Thank you.

No, Dr. Boll, thank you. Thank. You.

• EXCLUSIVE: Uwe Boll has a message for all the 'Boll haters' [YouTube]

I want that there's a petition also out there — like a pro-Boll petition — and I expect a million votes pro-Boll. And I hope somebody will set it up and you all start signing it, because look: I'm not a fucking retard like Michael Bay or other people running around in the business, or Eli Roth making the same shitty movies over and over again. If you really look at my movies you will see my real genius, you know?

And if you go on May 23 [to] Postal you will see that I deliver a movie that nobody else delivered in the last 10 years, what is way better as all that social-critic, George Clooney bullshit what you get every fucking weekend. You have to really wake up, and you have to see me what I am: I am the only genius in the whole fucking business. Goodbye.

• Exclusive: Uwe Boll responds to online petition [Movienet]

FN: Are you aware that there is a petition online, signed by 18,000 people, requesting that you stop making movies?

UB: Yeah, I know that. 18,000 is not enough to convince me.

FN: How many would it take?

UB: One million. Now we have a new goal.

Naturally, the troops have mobilized around the Web: At the aforementioned petition, nearly 1,300 signatures have accrued in the 10 minutes it took to write this item, bringing the total to nearly 58,000 at press time. Considering that the average Boll film draws around 15,000 theatrical viewers, we don't imagine there are 1 million people in the world who would bother to be this offended by House of the Dead. However, you also can't turn off the lush bloom of fan democracy once it's on, so here's your pen. Do your duty.

• Stop Dr. Uwe Boll [Petition Online via Vulture]

By John Gaudiosi

The year 2008 is going to be a very busy year for controversial film director Uwe Boll, who has a legion of detractors in the gaming community after films like Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne and House of the Dead. The prolific filmmaker, who independently finances every one of his movies, has a slate of movies in the can. He talks about what the coming year brings in this exclusive interview.

First up for Boll is his $60 million fantasy epic, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. The movie, which stars Ray Liotta, Jason Statham, Leelee Sobieski, Ron Perlman, Kristanna Loken, Matthew Lillard and Burt Reynolds, will open on 2,500 screens across North America on January 11—making it Boll's biggest film release yet.

"In the Name of the King is tracking well," said Boll. "Eighty percent of the TV spots for the film will begin January 1. The film opened in Germany and other foreign territories already and remained in the Top 10 for the first three weeks in every territory.

Boll concedes that In the Name of the King is by far the best movie he's ever made with the best cast and the best script he's ever worked with.

"I already have the director's cut DVD version in my head, which will be much longer and have more character development," said Boll. "The theatrical release is really action-driven, which works for the big screen. It's already 2 hours and 10 minutes long. The director's cut will be a much better movie."

Other than the character of Farmer and the krugs, Boll admits that he took almost nothing from the Dungeon Siege videogame, although he worked closely with the game's developer, Gas Powered Games, which had a representative on set while filming in Vancouver, British Columbia.

"The very beginning of the film has Farmer tending to his crops, but that's about it from the game," said Boll. "The Dungeon Siege game didn't have a real story. Chris Taylor at Gas Powered Games likes the movie and they're really behind the film. I think gamers will be happy with this film even if it's not really based on the game's story at all. It's a good fantasy film. I'm just happy to get it out on 2,500 screens. I don't think it will be a disaster like BloodRayne was."

Boll has partnered with FreeStyle Releasing for this film, the same distribution company that released Captivity and The Illusionist. For BloodRayne, Boll partnered with a start-up called Romar, which he later sued. The company failed to book the movie on the appropriate number of screens and film prints were mailed to theaters that never showed the movie. BloodRayne, which was a hit on DVD and spawned a straight-to-DVD sequel, which has also sold well, was a complete box office bomb.

Next up for Boll is Postal, his political comedy very loosely based on Running with Scissors' controversial first-person shooter. Boll said Postal will hit theaters in May or June 2008.

"We're going to go up against one big event movie like an Indiana Jones 4 or a Prince Caspian," said Boll. "I think we'll get more press and have a better chance against one big movie than six smaller movies the same weekend. It will be like David versus Goliath."

The $15 million film will open on 1,500 to 2,000 screens and unlike In the Name of the King, which will not be screened for press, Boll will be showing Postal to everyone in the media beginning in February. Boll wrote, directed, produced and actually stars as himself in this movie. Zack Ward stars in the film.

"My new PR agency, 42nd Street Public Relations, is working on getting me on talk shows and mainstream media and political shows," said Boll, who will be featured in the February issue of GQ Magazine. "They're going to try to get me on 'Larry King Live.'"

Also hitting theaters in 2008 from Boll are a pair of original, non-gaming movies. 1968: Tunnel Rats will open in late summer/early fall, but will be shown in film festivals like Tribeca and Berlin earlier. Boll said Universal Music has given him a complete soundtrack of hit songs from 1968 for his Vietnam war movie, which will be released as an art house film. A videogame based on the film will ship in tandem for Xbox 360 and PC.

Horror fans will be able to see the NC-17 rated Seed at the Fangoria Convention January 18. The 1970s movie, which stars Michael Pare as a man hunting down a released serial killer, will be rolled out in a limited release.

"We're doing 100 prints of the film and will move those from territory to territory across the country," said Boll. "The film's rated NC-17 and it's too hard for normal film audiences. There's a four-minute-long scene where a woman is killed with a hammer and it's one of the most gruesome scenes ever filmed."

Those who couldn't get enough of Alone in the Dark will be able to check out the straight-to-DVD sequel, which doesn't feature anyone from the original or tie into the original in any way. The DVD will be released in March or April of 2008.

As for Far Cry, which is being finished up now, Boll said because 2008 is so crowded with movies, he may hold that theatrical release until 2009, which should have more openings with the Hollywood writers' strike. Boll said he will likely film only one movie in 2008, but hopes to film at least two in 2009. The tentative plan is to film videogame adaptations of Sabotage and BloodRayne 3 (which will follow the World War II Nazi premise of the first game) in Croatia back-to-back.

Gamers will have plenty of new Boll films to talk about for the coming years.

Rather than challenging her to a fight or asking for an e-mail address at which he could berate her at his future convenience, he shared his belief that 9/11 was executed so badly by a doped pilot that they'll eventually "have to redo it." Say what you will about Boll's resume, but you're never going to hear anything that interesting come out of the mouth of Spielberg or Scorsese at one of their movie premieres.

• Previously: Defamer Stakes Out Some Space On The Stony Awards' Green Carpet [Defamer]

chris your review shows me only that you dont understand anything about movies and that you are a untalented wanna bee filmmaker with no balls and no understanding what POSTAL is. you dont see courage because you are nothing. and no go to your mum and fuck her ...because she cooks for you now since 30 years ..so she deserves it.

people like you are the reason that independent movies have no chance anymore. uwe boll PS: POSTAL is R RATED . The MPAA understood the satire — you not — you dumb fuck

The rest of the amusing exchange between the writer and director (and briefly, a publicist) is here, but nothing that follows really approaches Boll's opening salvo. Kohler should just consider himself lucky that Boll merely invited him to violate his own mother instead of beckoning him into the ring for one of his legendary critic ass-whoopings. The momentary sting of those clever words is almost certainly less painful than a brutal pummeling by Boll's meaty, smirk-erasing fists.

• You Dumb F*ck': Uwe Boll Responds To Our Postal Review [Game Life]