Well, things just got interesting in the world of Road House. It seems a Hollywood cat fight could be underway around the sequel, so we might get two of them.
The original Road House is a slice of 80s magnificence, as cheesy as it comes, drenched in a certain style as feather-haired and mom-jeans-wearing bouncer James Dalton kicks and punches his way through some local toughs in Missouri.
There was a straight-to-video sequel that featured Johnathon Schaech as the son of Swayze’s character… and that is why things are getting complicated.
Last year, there was a Road House remake that we didn’t really like all that much, as it seemed to have been made by people who had never even seen the original. It starred Jake Gyllenhaal as an ex-UFC fighter who takes a job as a bouncer in the Florida Keys. Amazon wrote the checks, and Doug Liman directed.
It was interesting as it was at the centre of a row between the director and the studio, as Liman maintained he was sold on a theatrical release, and Amazon Studios head (at the time) Jennifer Salke insisted it go straight to the streamer.
It was a big hit on streaming, so the sequel was greenlit. Production is underway.
However, according to a report in Deadline, Doug Liman has quietly acquired the sequel rights to the original 1989 film from its screenwriter R. Lance Hill. The result will be a new sequel to the 1989 original. So there will potentially be two Road House sequels around at the same time.
There is a court case already in process as Hill says he wrote the original movie as a spec script, and therefore he now owns the rights again, 35 years after United Artists bought them. Amazon and MGM claim this is not the case.
