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Doug Liman says he’s boycotting SXSW premiere of his Jake Gyllenhaal film ‘Road House’ to protest Amazon MGM bypassing theaters for Prime streaming release
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- Authors
- Doug Liman
- Published
- Jan 24 2024
- Word count
- 1163 words
Add this to the list of movies that I would have made an effort to see if it were not locked to a specific streaming service.
I am not going to pirate it, not going to subscribe to Bezos for a month to watch it, and not going to discuss it with my friends. I will treat it the same way as I treat the rest of the direct-to-TV garbage.
The problem is that I am absolutely sure that it will be a good movie. I love Jake Gyllenhaal in pretty much everything he does. I just have no better way to display my disappointment in the entire model.
Why not just pirate the stuff? I always felt that those kinds of protests are kind of sad; you're essentially just missing out for its own sake.
So you pirate it and watch it, then you go and discuss it with friends. You're still giving the movie exposure and social relevance. I think @DeaconBlue has the right idea: let it languish in unwatched obscurity.
You could also just watch it, and if your friends talk about it, declare that you for one would never watch it. Or if you do discuss it, mention that it's a shame we didn't get to see it in the cinema because so or so. The actual act of watching the movie impact nobody but yourself. I'm all for boycotts, but I think a lot of times, it seem to be driven by some psychologial factors, not the actual effect.
I'm just not someone that watches everything that comes out. It would have been something I watched with my wife. Instead, we'll watch something else at the cinema and talk to our friends about whatever we watch instead.
Just because something is purely psychological doesn't mean it isn't real or worthwhile. Perhaps the knowledge that they didn't participate is worth something to them. I don't know.
Agree with @halfdan, piracy is the answer. Piracy sends a message , albeit small. And you get to watch. And piracy has never been easier, or so my friends tell me.
Pirate it, enjoy it, and then keep your thoughts to yourself. Win-Win-Win.
Coming at it from the "non-cinephile but still watches/reads/watches-videos-about movies" angle, I broadly dislike platform exclusive anything (android apple/game consoles/streaming services/whatever) but I also don't really CARE which is pretty much what I think they're hoping for.
A month of amazon is cheaper than a single theater ticket for me, and it comes with the rest of their library and free shipping. If I actually want to see this I'd bite the bullet, or keep it vaguely in the back of my mind and look it up the next time I get aprime trial to buy something or it comes up when I'm rotating through the various streaming services anyway.
It seems like they're banking on movie/media fanatics watching it regardless, and other than that it's just another advertising cost. Pretty much every big budget anything in Hollywood has profit motives backed into it, I don't like it but I'm not more riled about the fact the money is being poured into the endless pit of streaming wars than I am about the janky Hollywood accounting that says Star Wars still isn't profitable to screw with roaylties.
It's all some degree of gross in the current system, if this happens to be a bridge to far for people I won't argue with them about it but I also can't muster up any more outrage for this than all the other financial chicanery we've gotten used to.
I don't understand the direct-to-streaming strategy. Are people that much more likely to subscribe to Netflix/Prime/whatever if a movie doesn't have a theatrical run before hitting the service? Maybe a better question is, are people like me going to cancel Netflix or Prime just because I was able to see a given film at a theater before or during its launch on the streaming service?
I would think having a theatrical run would be a good opportunity for double-dipping. You can earn back the film's entire budget at the box office, then the value it adds to your business by being the exclusive streaming provider is just gravy.
The fact that I can see so many of Apple's high profile films at the theater actually makes me like their service more. I do not feel like I was robbed of the opportunity to see Killers of the Flower Moon on the big screen, and I was very happy to be able to watch it again in my living room when it dropped on TV+ earlier this month.
I think Amazon feels burnt from their 2023 theatrical slate not doing well as a whole. And are now pulling out of the theatrical business despite promises being made for theatrical commitment back in late 2022.
Air did okay business but didn’t break even theatrically. They also had other bombs like Bottoms.
Air was popular on Prime after its theatrical release, however, and I’m not sure Saltburn would have been then TikTok phenomena that it was had it not been for its theatrical release (even if it didn’t recoup its production budget).
I don't know anyone who actually goes to the theater anymore, but locking it away behind a subscription service is a great way to make sure no one sees it.
I live in Seattle and me and all my friends constantly go to theaters. It's not as popular as it use to be but I definitely felt an uptick recently (I'm gen z for reference)
Genz and younger millennials are the major groups going to theaters. Older audiences not so much.
Outside of Dune 2 there's nothing really driving me to the theaters this year. Closest I've come to wanting to see something in a theater setting has been Godzilla Minus 1.
His plea for it to be in cinemas, a physical movie theater, falls flat for me. I prefer the home experience, for all the reasons you normally hear.
Audiences are rude and disruptive these days. It's impossible to watch where people just shut the fuck up and watch quietly. Yes it bothers me. Yes it's a big deal. And yes, I'm voting with my dollars by ... wait for it ... not going to the theater!
If this upsets the people who very much want the cinema experience preserved, get up and get busy in convincing the cinema-going-public to shut up in the cinema. Or convincing theaters that it is the reason they're losing some of their business. Customers like me won't return if we can't count on a quality, quiet movie going experience.
The rest of Liman's complaint comes down to contracts. Was it spelled out, in black and white on the page, that his movie would receive a theatrical release? Did it just say "theatrical release", or did it say "wide release of at least X number of screens in Y number of cities?"
No? Then he should be pissed at his lawyers (and agent, manager, whoever else he let insert themselves into the deal). This is why there are contracts.
Of course he's welcome to be upset. And vent. Even vent publicly. He's welcome to never work with Amazon (or other streamers) again, or to never sign a contact that doesn't spell out a wide theatrical release again. These are all his options, and I encourage him to vote his conscious and avail himself of them as he sees fit.
Just as I do by not going to theaters anymore.
About Road House 24 ... the trailer came out finally. I'm not sure. I have a soft spot for Road House. The Road House. It's a movie that shouldn't work when you hear its elevator pitch, but it does. The actors breathed life into the characters, who brought the little town of Jasper to life. Is the story complicated? No. Is it fun and cathartic? Yes. Is it something of a classic, at least to some people? Yes.
I'm not generally super anti-remake. I am super anti-lame and anti-lazy. Did they do that here? When I first heard about it, I wasn't sure. It kind of did sound like they were being lazy. They said "Dalton, a UFC fighter" and they lost me right there.
Dalton, the actual original Dalton as depicted by Swayze based on the script from David Lee Henry and Hilary Henkin, directed by Rowdy Herrington, was a philosopher who fell into bouncing basically by accident
They never explicitly walk us through Dalton's origin, but you get the impression that at some point during or right after college, he "found out" he never loses, probably about the time he met Wade Garret (the great Sam Elliott), and a round plug was fitted into a round hole from then on, bringing us to where we pick up with Dalton in the movie.
Swayze's Dalton is not a "big tough guy" who gets in people's faces, throws bravado, acts like a bully, does all the big tough action bro stuff. And when I heard UFC, that's really what I thought of. The concept of a UFC fighter, also bouncing, seemed completely utterly incompatible with the Dalton I know from the movie I love.
But this trailer maybe makes it look like Gyllenhaal's Dalton is a down on his luck guy. Poor. Struggling to make ends meet. Okay, Swayze's Dalton was basically doing fine financially, Garret even makes a comment at one point "all that money we're making, huh?"
If this new Road House has switched that around, and that's why Gyllenhaal is taking UFC fights (because he needs the money) ... that might work for story purposes. If he's still a monk philosopher, a quiet guy, a humble man (who just happens to never lose when he fights) ... that would address my initial assumption about the film. Which is really an objection to the film, the story I thought and it sounded like they were going to give us.
It's hard to trust trailers, but this one actually kind of maybe gives me a small amount of hope it won't be a trainwreck suckfest of a film. It has nothing to do with Gyllenhaal, he's always great when I see him. But story is what makes movies great, not actors. Actors can push bad to okay, or good to great, but they can't make average amazing if the script isn't there, if the story isn't behind them so they have something to work with.
It begs the question, if my new assumption is right, how can Gyllenhaal's Dalton can "never lose" and be broke, but I can think of a handful of obvious reasons they could use. Or they might have gotten clever and thought of some really good ones. Maybe he's reluctant to become a bouncer, though that seems at odds with why he'd do UFC.
But I guess about two months from now, I'll get to take a look at Liman's remake and see if it's butchered a movie I like quiet a bit, or if it's actually brought something interesting and enjoyable to the experience.
And I will be watching it at home. So I can enjoy it without disruption. C’est la vie Doug.