Summary
- Doug Liman criticizes Amazon’s streaming release of
Road House
, claiming that he and star Jake Gyllenhaal were compensated as if the movie were a theatrical release. - Liman previously took issue with Amazon’s Prime Video release of
Road House
, suggesting the company misled him. - A comment from Gyllenhaal and subsequent reporting has cast doubt on Liman’s claims and suggested that a streaming release was always the plan for Liman’s reboot.
Road House reboot director reflects on the movie’s straight-to-streaming release, and doubles down on his criticism of it. Serving as a new take on 1989’s Road House, which starred the late Patrick Swayze, the 2024 reboot sees Jake Gyllenhaal taking on the role of Dalton, an MMA fighter-turned-bouncer who takes a job at a violent Florida dive bar. In the months leading up to its release this past spring, Road House became mired in controversy regarding Amazon’s decision to release the film on Prime Video instead of giving it a theatrical release.
In a recent interview with IndieWire to promote his upcoming Apple TV+ film, The Instigators, Liman doubles down on his criticism of Road House‘s streaming release. The filmmaker reiterates some of the key complaints he made before the film’s debut and explains how the situation is different for his upcoming collaboration with Apple, which is also not getting a theatrical release. Check out Liman’s comment below:
“First of all, I have no issue with streaming. We need streaming movies cause, we need writers to go to work and directors to go to work and actors to go to work and not every movie should be in a movie theater. So I’m a big advocate of TV series, of streaming movies, of theatrical movies, we should have it all.
“My issue on ‘Road House’ is that we made the movie for MGM to be in theaters, everyone was paid as if it was going to be in theaters, and then Amazon switched it on us and nobody got compensated. Forget about the effect on the industry — 50 million people saw ‘Road House’ — I didn’t get a cent, Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t get a cent, [producer] Joel Silver didn’t get a cent. That’s wrong.
“In the case of Apple, right from the beginning, we said we’re making this for streaming, our contracts compensated streaming, we’re all compensated for it being on streaming — there’s something called a streaming buyout — so Apple has been above-board from the beginning.
“They come from a place that I come from where they want to make movies that are not empty calories. Cause you can make big, fun action movies that you’ll forget five minutes later and then you can make big, fun action movies that stick with you and you want to watch again or you think about it and you figure something out.
“Matt [Damon] and Ben [Affleck] with Artists Equity are committed in the same way. They want to make big, fun, commercial movies, but they want to make movies that resonate with an audience and that stick with you.”
When a movie is released theatrically, actors, directors, and other key creatives usually get a percentage of the film’s box office in addition to their base salaries. If a movie releases only on streaming and won’t generate any box office revenue, these same individuals often get more money up front as part of their deals.
Related
Road House Sequel: Confirmation, Cast & Everything We Know
The Amazon Prime Video remake of the 1980s classic Road House drew in huge viewership numbers, and now a sequel is in the works.
Road House’s Streaming Release Controversy Explained
What Jake Gyllenhaal Has Said
The controversy surrounding Road House‘s release stems from an op-ed that Liman published in Deadline in January 2024. Liman was originally in business with MGM for Road House and, since MGM was a theatrical movie company, the film presumably would’ve gone to theaters. In 2022, however, Amazon purchased MGM, and this is a major point in Liman’s op-ed. In the piece, Liman claims that Amazon floated the possibility of a Road House theatrical release, but only if the movie was “great,” which seemingly fit with the company’s larger promise to invest in theatrical projects.
Road House
‘s reviews
ended up being mixed from critics, and the film currently has a 59% critics’ score and a 53% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Though the director claims his Road House remake earned glowing scores from test audiences, with Amazon executives dubbing it a “smash hit,” the film went to streaming anyway. Liman, then, felt slighted, and he vowed to skip the film’s SXSW premiere (he would later change his mind and attend anyway). Some of Liman’s claims, however, have been contested, with Gyllenhaal himself telling Total Film in February: “Amazon was always clear that it was streaming.”
A report from Variety would also back Gyllenhaal’s claims that Road House‘s streaming release was always the plan. According to the publication, Amazon, after buying MGM, offered Liman and Gyllenhaal a $60 million budget for the film and a theatrical release, or an $85 million budget and a streaming release, with both agreeing on the latter option. Clearly, though, Liman doesn’t believe he was compensated fairly for Road House, and the film seems poised to remain a sticking point between him and Amazon for some time to come.
Source: IndieWire
