Jake Gyllenhaal has seen his upcoming movie Road House plunged into controversy, with the director vowing to boycott the premiere over its planned streaming-only release.
The film is a remake of a 1980s cult classic starring Patrick Swayze as New York bar bouncer James Dalton, who winds up working at a small-town nightclub in Missouri.
As he tries to keep his gruesome past shrouded in mystery, he finds himself confronted with the corrupt, violent underbelly of his new stomping grounds.
It emerged Wednesday that the new Road House will not get a theatrical release, but will instead receive a streaming-only rollout on Amazon Prime March 21.
In protest, its furious director Doug Liman wrote a Deadline guest column announcing that he will skip his own movie’s premiere in March.
Jake Gyllenhaal has seen his upcoming movie Road House plunged into controversy after Amazon Prime decided to give it a streaming-only release
In protest, its furious director Doug Liman wrote a Deadline guest column announcing that he will skip his own movie’s premiere in March
‘When Road House opens the SXSW film festival, I won’t be attending,’ wrote Doug, whose filmography includes Swingers, The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
‘The movie is fantastic, maybe my best, and I’m sure it will bring the house down and possibly have the audience dancing in their seats during the end credits,’ wrote the filmmaker in Deadline. ‘But I will not be there.’
He recalled: ‘When Amazon bought MGM, one of the few remaining studios making big commercial films for theatrical release (movies like Bond, Creed ) they announced that they would put a billion dollars into theatrical motion pictures, releasing at least 12 a year.”
Doug added: ‘They touted it as “the largest commitment to cinemas by an internet company.” I can tell you what they then did to me and my film, which is the opposite of what they promised when they took over MGM.’
He declared that ‘The facts’ were as follows: ‘I signed up to make a theatrical motion picture for MGM. Amazon bought MGM. Amazon said make a great film and we will see what happens. I made a great film.’
Dishing that the Amazon brass themselves referred to his movie as a ‘smash hit,’ he asserted that the film tested better than Mr. & Mrs. Smith or The Bourne Identity.
He also argued that the movie, with its emphasis on martial arts and its star turn by Conor McGregor, had a built-in audience with the ‘rabid and loyal’ UFC fanbase.
‘What else could I have delivered to the studio? Nothing, it turns out. Because contrary to their public statements, Amazon has no interest in supporting cinemas,’ the filmmaker wrote bitterly.
‘When Road House opens the SXSW film festival, I won’t be attending,’ wrote Doug, whose filmography includes Swingers, The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (pictured)
Jake stars in the Road House remake amid a string of boldface names including UFC icon Conor McGregor (left) and The White Lotus heartthrob Lukas Gage (right)
‘Amazon asked me and the film community to trust them and their public statements about supporting cinemas, and then they turned around and are using Road House to sell plumbing fixtures.’
He noted that the ‘filmmakers and stars’ of Road House do not financially ‘share’ in the windfall of the movie if it does well on a streaming service, adding that Jake will be ineligible for the major awards in spite of his ‘career-best performance.’
‘If we don’t put tentpole movies in movie theaters, there won’t be movie theaters in the future,’ Doug insisted. ‘Without movie theaters, we won’t have the commercial box office hits that are the locomotives that allow studios to take gambles on original movies and new directors. Without movie theaters we won’t have movie stars.’
His view is that movie theaters survived the coronavirus lockdowns because of ‘brave filmmakers like Chris Nolan and Tom Cruise,’ who ‘insisted their movies play in the theater, and they proved audiences are still there.’
Referring to the Amazon executives as ‘good people who are trying to do their best,’ he wondered if they might be ‘victims in this as well, forced to betray the artists they spent their careers supporting’ over their long careers in film.
‘The reality is there may not be a human villain in this story – it may simply be an Amazon computer algorithm,’ Doug continued drily.
‘Amazon will sell more toasters if it has more subscribers; it will have more subscribers if it doesn’t have to compete with movie theaters. A computer could come up with that elegant solution as easily as it could solve global warming by killing all humans.’
Earlier that day, a smoldering new poster dropped for the picture, showing Jake in character baring his sculpted torso.
The original movie starred Patrick Swayze as New York City bar bouncer James Dalton, who winds up working at a small-town nightclub in Missouri
As he tries to keep his gruesome past shrouded in mystery, he finds himself confronted with the corrupt, violent underbelly of his new stomping grounds
Doug’s livid broadside in Deadline came just hours after Jake appeared in a smoldering, flesh-flashing Instagram poster for Road House.
He sits relaxed in a chair with his Hawaiian shirt open, revealing a couple of bloody gashes on his abs and his musclebound chest.
Jake and Prime Video jointly released the head-turning new poster on Instagram this Wednesday, with the caption: ‘Keep cool. Trailer tomorrow.’
‘Keep cool,’ was a famous line from the original movie, which bowed in 1989 to a disappointing response but has since acquired a devoted cult following.
Patrick’s co-stars included Sam Elliott as James Dalton’s mentor and Drugstore Cowboy actress Kelly Lynch as his love interest.
The soundtrack included original songs by Patrick, among classic recordings like the Doors’ Roadhouse Blues and Fats Domino’s Blue Monday
Acclaimed Broadway actor Ben Gazzara featured as Brad Wesley, the nefarious businessman who becomes the villain of the picture.
The soundtrack included original songs by Patrick, among classic recordings like the Doors’ Roadhouse Blues and Fats Domino’s Blue Monday.
Meanwhile Jake stars in the remake amid a string of boldface names including UFC icon Conor McGregor and The White Lotus heartthrob Lukas Gage.
Jake’s character, renamed Elwood Dalton for the remake, has a love interest portrayed by The Suicide Squad breakout Daniela Melchior.
No Time To Die actor Billy Magnusson, You hunk Travis Van Winkle and veteran Portuguese actor Joaquim de Almeida are also in the cast.
Patrick’s (left) co-stars included Sam Elliott as James Dalton’s mentor (right) and Drugstore Cowboy actress Kelly Lynch as his love interest (center)
‘Keep cool,’ was a famous line from the original movie, which bowed in 1989 to a disappointing response but has since acquired a devoted cult following
Jake has a longtime connection to the late Patrick Swayze, having worked with him on the beloved 2001 sci-fi thriller Donnie Darko.
‘He was always so loving and lovely to me,’ Jake recalled on Good Morning America in 2022 after wrapping production on the new Road House.
‘I take that all to heart in playing the role and there are some things I take from him, but generally we made a whole new movie and I’m really excited about it.’
He acknowledged that remaking Road House was a formidable task, saying: ‘They’re big shoes to fill, but Patrick was a friend when he was here.’
Patrick Swayze died at the age of just 57 in 2009, less than two years after being diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer.
