Road House: straight to streaming despite great test scores?

The Jake Gyllenhaal/ Doug Liman remake of Road House seems destined for a streaming premiere. The news comes courtesy of Variety and was buried in a piece they wrote about the severing of producer Joel Silver’s relationship with Amazon Studios. According to the report, one of the reasons Silver was fired was due to rather heated discussions with people working for the studios over the films he was involved in, which were apparently bad enough to be considered verbal abuse. One of the things Silver was allegedly most upset over was the fact that Amazon is reportedly planning to release Road House straight-to-streaming through their Amazon MGM banner. This is despite the film being the highest testing film in director Doug Liman’s career, which is saying something as he also directed The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow, Swingers, Go, and Mr & Mrs Smith.

While news of an Amazon movie being destined for streaming shouldn’t come as much of a shock, in the last year, Amazon/MGM have moved towards a theatrical model, which paid off handsomely for Creed III and Air, and is now being used for their awards play, Saltburn, which has done well in limited release. Road House, a remake of the 1989 Patrick Swayze classic, certainly sounds commercial, but the streamer seems to be reserving it for a digital debut.

The fact that Silver got a little hot under the collar shouldn’t be a huge surprise, given his infamous reputation as one of Hollywood’s most explosive producers. Saul Rubinek brilliantly satirized him in True Romance, while Silver played an exaggerated version of himself in Disney’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit (in which he berates the titular rabbit). Alas, times have changed, and Silver’s once-explosive ways seem to have made him persona non grata at the studio where he was supposed to be making his comeback.

Do you think Road House should go to theaters? Let us know in the comments.