By Doug Liman’s “Road House” remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal has found itself in the kind of bare-knuckle fight its brawny star appears to get into in the new film.
The movie has made headlines of late about a strong disagreement between the parties with Liman, Gyllenhaal and others wanting a theatrical run whereas Amazon is going direct-to-streaming.
Now, Variety has done a report offering new details of what’s gone on behind-the-scenes and it’s a lot more complex than just streamer vs. filmmaker.
The project was initially set up in November 2021 as a full theatrical release at MGM back when Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy were running that studio. Those involved got onboard with every intent of a cinema release with streaming not a part of discussions.
Then Amazon closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM in March 2022, whilst in July De Luca and Abdy left to run Warner Bros. Pictures.
The big news of the piece is that Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke worked to salvage the film and was ready to greenlight it with the filmmakers and Gyllenhaal given a choice – make the film for $60 million as a theatrical release or make it for $85 million as a streaming-only release.
They opted for the latter and signed off on an August 2022 press release labelling the movie an Amazon Prime Video movie with the film being plugged as being “for our global audience” by Amazon.
Producer Joel Silver continued to push for a theatrical release and grew so combative the studio eventually booted him in late 2023. Then came Liman’s open letter in late January that he would boycott the film’s premiere claiming that “Amazon has no interest in supporting cinemas.”
Thus the film is now the subject of controversy, which actually may be helping it. The trailer released to much attention a few weeks back, and the film is expected to be one of the most-watched movie launches on Amazon Prime this year.
The new “Road House” will debut on the streamer on March 8th.
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