Amazon Pissed Off Doug Liman So Bad That He's Making His Own Roadhouse Movie Without THem
Liman, who revived the franchise with a streamer hit remake that starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Irish MMA fighter Conor McGregor, quietly has acquired the sequel rights to Road House scripted by original writer R. Lance Hill. The filmmaker plans to make Road House: Dylan, the scribe’s sequel to the iconic 1989 film that starred the late Patrick Swayze as the Zen tough guy who comes to a crooked town and cleans it up, one bar brawl at a time. Compulsively watchable from Ben Gazzara’s scene-chewing villain to Kelly Lynch’s ER doctor and Sam Elliott as Swayze’s wingman, It remains on hallowed B-movie ground.
Amazon MGM Studios has begun production on Road House 2, with Ilya Naishuler taking over in the director’s chair after Liman washed his hands of it. Gyllenhaal reprises as cagefighter-turned-barfighter alongside Dave Bautista, Aldis Hodge and Leila George. Like last year’s first film, the plan is to release the sequel on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming site. The Liman-directed original became the biggest movie debut ever with a record-breaking 50 million worldwide viewers in its first two weekends on Prime Video. That made it the most-watched produced film debut ever on a worldwide basis, according to the streamer, though precise streaming numbers aren’t as easily tracked as theatrical film box office repeats. One thing for sure: Since Liman’s deal included bumps for box office success, his compensation suffered because the crowd-pleasing film certainly would have had a strong opportunity to draw a crowd to theaters.
How can there be dueling sequels to the same film? There is a federal lawsuit being waged over the franchise’s ownership, filed by attorney Marc Toberoff for Hill. The issue is this: They maintain that Hill wrote the 1986 original as a spec script, and that, under Section 203 of the U.S. Copyright Act, Hill lawfully recaptured rights to his screenplay on November 11, 2023 — 35 years after selling it to United Artists. Section 203 allows authors to reclaim copyrights to original works after that period, unless the work was created as a “work for hire.”
The TLDR is that Doug Liman, the director of Amazon's 'Road House', was pissed off that they switched the movie from a theatrical to a streaming release. He shit on Amazon, who is still moving forward with a sequel, and he is now working on making is OWN SEQUEL with the writer of the original movie.
I look at this two ways:
1. I like a David vs Goliath battle. Taking on Amazon is fucking crazy and I kind of respect Liman for doing it. They messed with his wallet, he's gonna mess with theirs.
2. I don't think we need any more Roadhouse movies period. The original movie is a cult classic for a reason. It's not ACTUALLY good. Just fun and stupid.
I don't think I'm interested in either of these. Don't need a recasted Swayze, don't need to see Jake G fighting Bautista in a movie from the 'Heads of State' guy.