‘Road House’ Sequel in the Works ...

There was never any doubt in my mind that a sequel to Amazon’s “Road House” was going to happen. Variety has now only confirmed the obvious. Jake Gyllenhaal is set to back for this one.

“Road House” was a major hit for the streamer, having attracted nearly 80 million worldwide viewers, becoming Amazon MGM Studios’ most-watched produced film debut ever on a worldwide basis.

Given his disdain for the film’s lack of a theatrical release, I highly doubt that director Doug Liman will be back for this one. There’s been a lot of reporting on the behind-the-scenes drama with “Road House” — it all culminated with Liman, vehemently unhappy over Amazon’s release strategy, going scorched earth on the streamer and publishing an op-ed about how they betrayed him by not giving the film a theatrical release.

It turns out, “Road House” fit perfectly on streaming, where it amassed a larger audience than it ever could otherwise in theaters. It was low-IQ filmmaking, and the best way to watch such a film was on a platform, on your couch. It wasn’t worth the $20 one would have to pay up for a movie ticket. It was a big, dumb, fun movie. Nothing more, nothing less.

I had previously written: … “If you just give in to the fact that “Road House” is a hyper masculine fantasy, driven by a charismatically tongue-in-cheek performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, then you could do a lot worse than spending two hours watching this one on your couch. Gyllenhaal’s co-star, Connor McGregor, got the memo as well — his villainous turn as Knox is ridiculously over-the-top, as if he was doing lines of coke and chugging down red bulls before every take.”

Reviews were just okay for the film, it currently has a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, and even audiences knew what they were getting themselves into — that 53% RT user rating does say a lot, ditto the 6.2 IMDb score.