Road House Director Slams Amazon’s Release Strategy; Will Boycott SXSW Screening in Protest

Road House director Doug Liman pulled no punches when blasting Amazon’s decision to send the Jake Gyllenhaal movie straight to Prime Video, and not give it the theatrical release originally planned. With the news that the remake of the Patrick Swayze hit of the ‘80s will be opening the SXSW Film Festival, Liman, in a guest column for Deadline, revealed that he will not be attending the premiere in protest over Amazon’s treatment of the movie.

Previous reports suggested that star Gyllenhaal was furious at the movie’s cinematic run being KO’d in favors of becoming a Prime Video exclusive release. Now Liman had given his take on the release strategy of the film, and he clearly does not agree with it at all. He began:

When Road House opens the SXSW film festival, I won’t be attending. 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. But I will not be there. My plan had been to silently protest Amazon’s decision to stream a movie so clearly made for the big screen. But Amazon is hurting way more than just me and my film. If I don’t speak up about Amazon, who will?

Liman continued to explain how the purchase of MGM by Amazon brought with it a caveat to the film; he had to make a good movie. However, according to the director, he did all that was requested and more, but still saw Road House being pulled from the theatrical release schedule. He said:

The facts: 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. Road House tested higher than my biggest box office hit, Mr. and Mrs Smith. It tested higher than Bourne Identity, which spawned four sequels. I’m told the press response has been Amazon’s best since they bought MGM. Road House has a strong tie-in to the UFC, which has a rabid and loyal fan base that has spawned over 1.5 billion social media impressions for the film, and marketing hasn’t even started yet.

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Should Road House Have A Theatrical Release?

Clearly, Liman believes that it should. While he doesn’t specifically blame any executive at Amazon – as he notes that they are all very fair and friendly people – she does consider Amazon’s algorithm to possibly be responsible for what has happened to Road House. He concluded:

The reality is there may not be a human villain in this story – it may simply be an Amazon computer algorithm. 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. But a computer doesn’t know what it is like to share the experience of laughing and cheering and crying with a packed audience in a dark theater – and if Amazon has its way, future audiences won’t know either.