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Normally this kind of news would have dropped over at Deadline or THR so I’m kind of waiting to see if this goes officially…well…official. According to reports from movie news sites like Puck and World of Reel, it would appear that prolific filmmaker Guy Ritchie (Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, Snatch, Wrath of Man) is circling the Octagon to helm Amazon MGM’s sequel to Jake Gyllenhaal’s Road House reimaging. It was a no brainer that a follow up was greenlit so fast being that the film was the most successful film to stream on the site garnering over 50 million global viewers in just its first two weeks on the platform. The film was met with mixed reviews (understatement) with me being one of the ones that felt the movie was…Meh.
It was also a no brainer that the film’s first director Doug Liman wouldn’t be returning since his public disdain for not having the movie hit theaters and the battles, he had with Amazon MGM moving forward. There was a lot of behind the scenes drama with Liman which culminated in the filmmaker boycotting the movie’s SXSW festival premiere and while it turned out that the move to have the flick hit Prime solo was probably the better one as it has amassed a butt load of views since while it probably wouldn’t have been a massive success at the box office.
It’s important to note that Ritchie is said to be in active negotiations with this one so don’t count your chickens just yet and the question remains if he is the right fit to direct the sequel. Sure, Ritchie has crushed it in the action department as of late with his offerings of Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, which also starred Gylenhaal, and hooking up with The Stath for Operation Fortune and Wrath of Man but this particular project might not be suited for his tone. I mean, sure The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare was an absolute banger and hilarious but Road House is meant to be a fun brawl befitting the 80’s. That’s what the first film was lacking and now if Ritchie helms, that might not happen once again.
Now Ritchie and Gyllenhaal have a great working relationship having done the aforementioned Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant as well as the upcoming In the Grey so that is probably factoring into the decision. Hopefully, if Ritchie does direct, he will bring the necessary wink and nudge to this film that it beckons for.
Gyllenhaal’s first foray as Elwood Dalton wasn’t a bad movie and did have its moments especially the climatic tussle between Gyllenhaal and MMA champ Conor McGregor but it was missing all the fun that the late, great Patrick Swayze brought to the original. In my review on The Action Fix Podcast, I stated that the movie was Ok but ultimately forgettable when all is said and done but hopefully Ritchie, if he boards the project, will get the assignment. We shall see.
Check out the inaugural episode of The Center the Ring where we debated both versions of the film and which one we thought was better. Spoiler Alert (Not Really), it was the original.
