Armie Hammer’s comeback movie following sexual assault allegations has picked up a worldwide distribution deal despite its overwhelmingly negative critical reception.
As reported by Variety, Quiver Distribution has picked up the worldwide distribution rights to the Uwe Boll-directed Citizen Vigilante—which Variety called “morally bankrupt. The movie will be distributed by Quiver worldwide, excluding the United Kingdom, South Korea, Taiwan, and German-speaking territories.
The deal arrives days after Elon Musk shared the movie for free on X, formerly Twitter, for 48 hours last week. Boll told Variety that Musk contacted his U.S.-based podcast, Uwe Boll Raw, to ask if he could share the movie directly to his 240 million followers.
“He contacted my U.S. podcast, but not me directly, and they told me, like, ‘We got a message from Elon Musk,’” he said. “I thought that it must be a parody account… I mean, you’re not really thinking that he would contact you, but then it turned out it was true.” He added that there was “a good and a bad side” to Musk sharing the movie for free, because it provided a lot of publicity but no immediate financial benefit.
The movie was denied a rating in Boll’s home country of Germany, and has not received a rating from the UK’s British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). Produced on a budget of $2 million, Boll revealed that it’s generated $600,000 in revenue so far, but he hopes to recoup the budget for a sequel. He said he “think[s]” that Armie would be “happy” to star in a sequel.
Hammer recently told The Hollywood Reporter that he “cried” when he received an offer to star in Citizen Vigilante, his first offer since he was accused of sexual abuse and cannibalistic fetishism involving multiple women in 2021. While he admitted to emotional wrongdoing in his previous relationships, he denied the accusations of sexual abuse and assault.
Uwe Boll has earned a reputation for his critically lambasted filmography, which includes multiple video game adaptations that are often called some of the worst movies of all-time. Among his worst-reviewed projects are 2005’s Alone in the Dark, 2003’s House of the Dead, 2005’s BloodRayne, and 2007’s Postal. Despite his reputation as a hack filmmaker, Citizen Vigilante has become a lightning rod for conservative admiration because it features a cancelled movie star killing migrants.
In a review for Variety, Todd Gilchrist described the movie as “morally bankrupt,” with Hammer portraying a “xenophobic and entitled” American who frequently delivers “self-righteous monologues about the downstream societal repercussions of criminality.”
