Doug Liman boycotts his own Road House remake: “If I don’t denounce Amazon…”

Initially intended for cinema, this film with Jake Gyllenhaal as an MMA champion will finally be broadcast in streaming. A huge disappointment for its director, who decided not to support it, even during the popular SXSW festival.

We have known for several months already that Doug Liman (Memory in the skin, Edge of Tomorrow…) remake freely Road House, a hit 1990s film starring Patrick Swayze. This time it is Jake Gyllenhaal who plays a brawling but handsome bar bouncer, and all the more dangerous because in this version, he is a former MMA champion. Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams and even the real member of the Ultimate Fighting Championship Conor McGregor are also in the cast.

Filming began last year, and the first photos of the actor Brokeback Mountain, hyper muscular for this role, caused a sensation on the web. However, its future programming at the SXSW festival, scheduled for March, will be boycotted by its own director. It’s a prestigious event, which usually draws attention to ambitious films. He details precisely why he made this difficult decision in the American press.

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When the actors’ strike broke out in mid-July, the filming of Road House was almost finished, but enormous tensions arose between the star, his director and the production. Joel Silver, who was one of the project’s lead financiers for Amazon and MGM, was fired at that point because he allegedly “verbally abused” of its employees. But Variety revealed at the end of the year that his departure would in fact have been linked to decisions by the studio, which would have asked him to ensure that the film was finished using artificial intelligence software, in order to release it directly for streaming early 2024, on Prime Video. The original deal called for a theatrical release, and certainly not to finish the film with AI, which would have pushed Silver to drop everything.

Hollywood magazine reported that when this decision to move Road House streaming was taken, Silver, Liman and Gyllenhaal all three stepped up to defend a theatrical release of the film. Taking the example of the recent successes of Top Gun: Maverick orOppenheimer, they asked Amazon boss Jeff Bezos if they could organize a private screening for him on his yacht to try to change his mind. Because the first test screenings were very positive, and the trio wanted their film to be shown in cinemas as promised.

“They managed to convince Jeff Bezos to see this film on his yacht. With the hope, of course, that he would love it and support them about this cinema release. (Jen) Salke (at the head of Amazon Studios, editor’s note) knew they set this up, but she didn’t change her mind. She noted their effort, though.”we read in Variety last month.

Now, it is with Deadline that Doug Liman confides. “Amazon is hurting movies, and not just mine, he said. If I don’t report them, who will?”

He then says he received lots of promises from them when he signed to remake Road House. When the project was announced, the production, which had just bought MGM, positioned itself in the press release as a “great defender of cinema”he recalls. “Contrary to what they have publicly said, Amazon does not support cinema at all. They asked me, as well as my community, to trust them, and together we published this press release in which they said they supported theatrical releases, then they changed their mind and now they use Road House to help sell plumbing tools.”

Doug Liman then details that Road House was shown to a limited audience, and it was very well received.

“In his screen tests, he received better scores than Mr. and Mrs. Smith, he says of his 2005 success. Even better than The memory in the skin, a film that led to four sequels! I was even told that it had received the best reception since Amazon bought MGM… Not to mention that Road House has a strong connection with the UFC, and fans of the sport, particularly loyal, have already shared messages about the film en masse on social networks. There are 1.5 billion mentions of Road Housewhile its marketing has not even officially started yet!”

He also emphasizes that by deciding to leave Road House directly streaming, Amazon deprives its team of potential revenue bonuses, since the film will by definition not be successful at the box office. Not to mention that Gyllenhaal will not be able to compete at the Oscars, “While it’s a key role in his career, he was born to play this characterassures the director. But once again, my fear goes beyond my own film. This kind of decision could represent what the industry will become in the decades to come.”

“It’s simple, if we no longer release big films in cinemas, there will be no more cinemas in the future, he worries. Feature films like Road House are typically the kind of films people want to see on the big screen. It was made precisely for that. Without theaters, we will no longer have big box office hits, no more locomotives that allow studios to bet on original projects or new directors. Without theaters, we will no longer have movie stars…

Oppenheimer And Top Gun: Maverick have recently proven that despite everything that is happening in the world, we still like to enjoy a session, see a film together and share this experience. People love going to the movies, even if streaming is convenient. The two can coexist. In fact, there has been research on this, and it turns out that films work better on streaming when they are first released in theaters.

The reality is that there may not even be a human villain in this story. Perhaps it was Amazon’s algorithm that decided this. They will sell more toasters by having more subscribers, and to increase subscribers, will it be easier if you are no longer competing with cinemas? But a computer could very well come to the conclusion that to prevent global warming, the best solution would be to kill all humans! A computer doesn’t know what it’s like to enjoy a movie in a full theater, to laugh and cry at the same time in the darkness of a cinema. And if Amazon continues like this, the public of the future won’t know either.”

Road House will be released on March 21 on Prime Video in the United States. Its French release date remains to be confirmed.

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