The premiere of the new Road House, directed by Doug Liman, took place over weekend – with Doug Liman attending after all.
Maybe somewhere down the line, a really good book will be written about the upcoming Road House remake. On the surface, this should have been a quiet and straightforward production story. Jake Gyllenhaal was hired to star, Doug Liman directing, Amazon putting the money in, and everything then moving on to the next thing.
But Road House exploded a bit. Notwithstanding the fact that the film is really good fun – think I’m allowed to say that now – it’s earned a hell of a lot of ink this year because Doug Liman came out so strongly against Amazon’s release plans for the film (the corporation was “using Road House to sell plumbing fixtures” said at the time).
The new Road House is skipping cinemas and going straight to the Prime Video service later this month, but it did get a big screen outing at the SXSW festival over the weekend. A premiere that Liman insisted he was going to boycott in protest at Amazon’s decision to eschew a cinema release.
Podcast: Locked Down (2021) and more, with director Doug Liman
Thing is, over the weekend, Doug Liman turned up at said premiere. In fact, he now only turned up, he sat in the audience for the Q&A with Jake Gyllenhaal that took place after the screening, and the crowd gave him a standing ovation too.
Liman had been insistent that when he signed on to make the movie, it was going to get a cinema release. Jake Gyllenhaal meanwhile had suggested that it was always set for streaming. Presumably, there’s documentation somewhere along the line to back up the story.
Nonetheless, we’ve come a long way since Liman published his open letter back in January that criticised Amazon.
The film is now set to land on Prime Video from 21st March, so it’s less than two weeks before the rest of the world can get to see it. Don’t expect Doug Liman to be sat in your front room watching it with you though.
