Road House shatters streaming records, creators left unpaid

"Road House," the new version of the story told in the movie "Road House" from 1989, has become the biggest hit in the history of the Amazon Prime Video platform. However, its creators are frustrated because the streaming giant does not intend to share the profits related to the film's success.

"Road House" made headlines a few weeks before its release on VOD when the film's director, Doug Liman (creator of several box office hits including "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" and "The Bourne Identity") gave an interview in which he claimed that he felt deceived by Amazon. He said his bosses promised that "Road House" would be released in theaters. Ultimately, they made a different decision.

"Road House" was initially conceived as a theatrical release for MGM. However, plans changed when Amazon purchased the film studio. It appears that Amazon decided not to share profits with theater owners. So, they immediately put the film on the streaming platform, where it enjoyed record-breaking viewership.

It turns out that Amazon also did not share the profits related to the film's success with its creators. "My issue on ‘Road House’ is that we made the movie for MGM to be in theatres, everyone was paid as if it was going to be in theatres, and then Amazon switched it on us, and nobody got compensated. Forget about the effect on the industry — 50 million people saw ‘Road House’ — I didn’t get a cent, Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t get a cent, [producer] Joel Silver didn’t get a cent. That’s wrong," Doug Liman told IndieWire.

The director of "Road House" mentioned 50 million viewers in the interview, but it should be noted that this was the number achieved by the film in just the first 10 days of streaming. In total, the number of people who watched this title could be twice as many. One way or another, "Road House" is considered the biggest hit (among feature films) in the history of Amazon Prime Video.

"First of all, I have no issue with streaming. We need streaming movies cause, we need writers to go to work and directors to go to work and actors to go to work and not every movie should be in a movie theater. So I’m a big advocate of TV series, of streaming movies, of theatrical movies, we should have it all," concludes Doug Liman.