The immortal 1989 feature, “Road House,” which starred Patrick Swayze as a “cooler” for a rough-and-tumble roadside dive bar, is getting a fresh coat of paint with Jake Gyllenhaal serving a similar role, this time for an oceanside bar in Florida. And it looks like there will be a similar amount of fist-fighting and beer-drinking. You can watch the new trailer above.
In this new “Road House” Gyllenhaal plays Elwood Dalton, which could mean that he’s the son of the Swayze character from the first movie, a former UFC fighter who becomes a “cooler” for a bar in the Florida Keys. Jessica Williams, Daniela Melchior (in the Kelly Lynch role) and Billy Magnussen (channeling Ben Gazzara from the original), star alongside actual UFC fighter Conor McGregor.
Doug Liman, who knows his way around action thanks to “The Bourne Identity” and “Edge of Tomorrow,” directs from Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry’s script, who often work with Shane Black. (They all wrote Black’s upcoming “Play Dirty” which, like “Road House,” was made for Amazon/MGM.)
The trailer delivers on what made the original “Road House” so great and the setting moving to Florida actually seems to suit the material well and establishes itself in a unique way from the original (which was set in Missouri).
“Road House” will open the SXSW Film Festival in March, which has already triggered some controversy, with Liman vowing not to attend the screening in protest of Amazon MGM Studios not giving the movie a theatrical release. Among other grievances, Liman thinks Gyllenhaal is good enough to earn a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
“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 wrote. He said that the film “is fantastic, maybe my best” and that, despite testing well and pleading with Amazon to either release the movie theatrically or let him sell it to somebody who will, the movie will only play on streaming.
“Road House” hits Prime Video on March 21.
