The Bloody Fight Over a Road House Sequel

How are we going to pluralize Road House? Road Houses? Road Homes? Roads House like Surgeons General? This is important, because there appear to be two imminent sequels to the Jake Gyllenhaal reboot of Road House, and they’re fighting. How apt.

The legal battles between Amazon, remake director Doug Liman, and original Road House scribe R. Lance Hill are about as juicy as any sequel could hope to be. Deadline just reported that Liman and Hill have teamed up against Amazon MGM to do a Road House sequel in direct opposition to the one being made by Amazon (and Gyllenhaal). The Amazon picture was announced in April, with Guy Ritchie replacing Liman. Then Ilya Naishuler replaced Liman. Now Liman and Hill are taking advantage of some copyright law to announce their movie, Road House: Dylan. Hill asserts that he wrote the original Road House on spec, and that rights to his screenplay reverted back to him in 2023. Amazon MGM says Hill wrote the script as “work for hire,” which keeps the screenplay in the producers’ hands.

Liman is joining forces with Hill because he feels he was screwed by Amazon too. He says his contract stated that Road House would get a theatrical release, only to be shunted to streaming. So which Road House 2 is the one true sequel? That’s for the courts to decide.