The Jake Gyllenhaal-led Road House reboot debuted to Amazon Prime Video subscription holders in March 2024, and along with receiving a decent amount of positive critical reception (our own Eric Eisenberg gave it 4 out of 5 stars in his Road House review), it was a massive hit for the streaming platform. So it was hardly shocking when it was announced that Road House 2 was happening, but apparently that’s not the only Road House sequel in the works. Doug Liman, who directed the reboot, reportedly wants to make his own separate follow-up to the original Road House.
You may recall how Liman criticized Amazon for scrapping Road House’s theatrical run and made it a streaming-only release, saying that “nobody got compensated” for the shift. Now, along with him not returning to helm Road House 2, Deadline reports that the filmmaker has secured the sequel rights for the 1989 Road House, which starred Patrick Swayze and was written by R. Lance Hill. Liman is planning to make Road House: Dylan, though no plot details were revealed.
It’s worth noting that in 2006, a direct-to-video Road House 2 was released starring Johnathon Schaech as DEA Agent Shane Tanner, the son of Patrick Swayze’s James Dalton. Assuming Doug Liman is successful in getting his Road House follow-up off the ground, needless to say it would get a significantly bigger release. As for how it would be possible to have two separate Road House movies be made, that stems from R. Lance Hill filing a federal lawsuit over ownership of the franchise.
Doug Liman met with Hill when he was beginning work on the Road House reboot and, as Deadline put it, “sympathized with his plight” regarding the ownership issues. Hill’s lawyer argued that his client lawfully reacquired the rights to his script on November 11, 2023, 35 years after he sold it to United Artists. Amazon-MGM, however, is arguing that Hill wrote the script as a “work for hire,” meaning he wouldn’t have legal standing to get those rights back. Basically, the Road House property is currently in a weird limbo that allows a sequel to the original and a sequel to the reboot to be pursued separately.
It’s reminiscent of what happened with the James Bond franchise in 1983 with the release of both Roger Moore’s Octopussy, which is part of the official Bond film series, and Sean Connery returning for Never Say Never Again, his second go at a Thunderball adaptation which was released by Warner Bros. Maybe Amazon-MGM will eventually reach a number that meets with R. Lance Hill’s approval and convinces him to relinquish his claim over the original Road House script. For now though, we live in a world where both the original Road House continuity and the reboot continuity can continue onwards under supervision from different parties.
As far as Jake Gyllenhaal’s Road House 2 goes, Ilya Naishuler is taking over directorial duties, and the cast also includes Dave Bautista and Leila George. Production has begun on the sequel, but a release date hasn’t been set yet.
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