The Rundown: The ‘Road House’ Streaming Fracas, Explained

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE – We have a brawl on our hands

There’s a remake of Road House coming out soon. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an absolutely shredded UFC-adjacent guy who takes a security gig at a rough bar in the Florida Keys that is owned by Jessica Williams, which is as good a place to start as any, remake-wise. Connor McGregor is in there. Lots of people punch each other in the head and/or torso. There’s an aquatic explosion or two in the trailer. It looks like a fun time. Watch for yourself.

Unfortunately, everyone involved in the making of this movie now hates each other very much. Maybe not the cast, but definitely the director and the studio executives at Amazon who are responsible for distributing it and plan to drop it as a streaming exclusive in March. That’s actually what the issue is, whether it gets a theatrical release or not. It’s been an issue for a while. A producer got fired over it. Gyllenhaal and the director, Doug Liman, who also made the Bourne movies, flew out and screened the movie for Jeff Bezos on his yacht to try to convince him, and yes, please stop here and picture Jake Gyllenhaal and Jeff Bezos sitting on a mega-yacht watching Road House together. Just a big fiasco everywhere.

And it appears it has reached a resolution, with a big insider-y report in Variety confirming that it will not get that theatrical release. From that report:

Just as the maelstrom was dying down, Liman went nuclear with an open letter on Jan. 24, writing that he would boycott the film and claiming that “Amazon has no interest in supporting cinemas.”

The missive appears to be the final shot on a project fraught with discord. Ultimately, it’s left some with a bad taste. “It’s so disrespectful to everyone who worked hard on it,” says one person involved. “It’s a great big fun streaming movie.”

Two things worth noting here:

• The italics in the last sentence there are theirs, not mine
• Given everything that has taken place here, it might be the meanest use of italics I have ever seen

Oh hey. That thing in the blockquote about Liman boycotting his own film over this? That’s a thing that’s happening, too. He wrote a whole open letter about it in Deadline. You can hear how angry he is just reading the words to yourself in your own head. Look at this.

“The facts: I signed up to make a theatrical motion picture for MGM. Amazon bought MGM. Amazon said make a great film and we will see what happens. I made a great film.

We made Road House a “smash hit” – Amazon’s words not mine, btw. Road House tested higher than my biggest box office hit, Mr. and Mrs Smith. It tested higher than Bourne Identity, which spawned four sequels. I’m told the press response has been Amazon’s best since they bought MGM.”

It gets better.

“Because contrary to their public statements, Amazon has no interest in supporting cinemas. Amazon will exclusively stream Road House on Amazon’s Prime. Amazon asked me and the film community to trust them and their public statements about supporting cinemas, and then they turned around and are using Road House to sell plumbing fixtures.”

Three notes in conclusion:

• God, that’s a good line at the end, and one that maybe explains the devastating italics the Amazon executive used this week in retaliation
• This isn’t quite the mess Coyote Vs. Acme is because at least this one is getting released somewhere, but it is another shot in the war between studios and creatives that seems to be waging in 2024
• All due respect to everyone involved but it is a little funny that a bunch of very wealthy people are going to the mattresses in the press like this over a movie where Conor McGregor headbutts people in the trailer

So that’s what’s up with Road House.

ITEM NUMBER TWO – Put Dakota Johnson on every press tour

The reviews for Madame Web came in earlier this week and… look. They’re not good. They’re actually very bad. I haven’t seen a collective critical pile-on like this since… I don’t know, Morbius? Go read a bunch of them this weekend. They are so mean. One review I saw compared the movie to the Chernobyl disaster, which, okay, the context was about horrible incidents involving radiation and how a radioactive spider bit the main character in this movie, but still. People died in Chernobyl! A lot of them! Think about how bad a movie has to be for someone to say that. It almost makes me want to see it more. This is probably a character flaw on my part.

There is a silver lining in it all, though, even with the disastrous reviews and projections: It gave us a full-on Dakota Johnson press tour. That’s not nothing. Dakota Johnson press tours are a chaotic little treasure and, yes, we can link to the Ellen thing again here, as we are obligated to do in these situations. But she’s still out here spinning gold. She was asked in one interview to name the movies in the MCU Spider-Man trilogy and the titles she guessed were “Spider-Man: Here He Comes, Spider-Man: And He’s Back, and The Goblet of Spider-Man.” That’s just beautiful.

It gets better. Please go read this interview she did with L’Officiel. I’m going to blockquote some highlights but I need you to read the whole thing. I mean, this is the very first question and answer.

MARISA MELTZER: I’ve heard you like to eat a popsicle while taking a bath.

DAKOTA JOHNSON: Have you done that? It’s a fabulous activity. A popsicle and a hot bath is a sensational experience.

“A popsicle and a hot bath is a sensational experience.” I suspect that sentence is going to stay with me for a while.

It gets better. Here she is discussing the process of making movies.

I am discovering that it’s really f-cking bleak in this industry. It is majorly disheartening. The people who run streaming platforms don’t trust creative people or artists to know what’s going to work, and that is just going to make us implode. It’s really heartbreaking. It’s just f-cking so hard. It’s so hard to get anything made.

Please imagine the marketing team for Madame Web reading this interview after presumably giving her weeks of talking points to hit and avoid. They have bigger problems on their hands now, but I suspect they sighed deeply enough to blow out a candle.

Finally, there was this, where she discussed the viral quote from earlier in this same press tour (lol) about sleeping 14 hours a day.

I said I could easily sleep 14 hours. I didn’t say that I sleep 14 hours every night. I have a job. There’s no way that I could do my job and do that. So clearly something is amiss with that. I do love sleeping, but I didn’t say that. I think I’m beginning to understand that sarcasm doesn’t translate to journalists these days, or embellishment. I just have to be more literal, I guess.

Bless her. Put her on every press tour. Even ones for movies she’s not in. Let her do the press tour for the next Mission: Impossible movie. Ask her about submarines. And Tom Cruise. I need you to know that I am very serious about this.

Anyway, if you were worried at all that this Madame Web business is getting to her too much, well…

The best in the business.

ITEM NUMBER THREE – Tell me more about The John Wick Experience

Welllllll guess what: Something called “The John Wick Experience” is coming to Vegas. Which is funny. Because the character arc of John Wick — his own actual experience, if you will — involves his beloved wife dying and the puppy dog she got him to remember her by getting murdered by a snotty little wannabe kingpin. I hope that’s not what happens at this thing. I hope they do not just like kill your spouse and dog and hand you a gun. That would be bad.

Guests will step through the doors of the Las Vegas Continental and into the fantastical world of the billion-plus grossing franchise movies, where they will navigate a high stakes adventure as well as visit a themed bar and retail shop open to the general public.

Okay, yeah. That sounds more reasonable.

Each group of guests will be tasked with specific missions, playing out in unique ways with characters, mythology and iconography from the Wick universe. The adventures entail rubbing elbows with Continental staff, assassins, crime bosses, or other curious guests like themselves within the relative safety of the Continental.

On one hand, yes, fine, sure. This seems like a thing we can do. People love these movies. I love these movies. Not enough to fly to Vegas specifically for this but, like, if I was already there, maybe.

But on the other hand, if you are someone who is thinking about going to this, please just know that there will absolutely, 100 percent, be a few very excited dudes in line outside dressed like John Wick and quoting the movie a lot. There’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose. I’m glad those dudes are having fun. But I just want you to be prepared for that before you show up.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR – Rebecca Ferguson seems like a fun lady

We can get out of this one in four bullet points:

• This is a video from the Dune 2 press tour where a correspondent from Nerdist asks Rebecca Ferguson about the Dune popcorn bucket that went viral a few weeks ago for reasons the people who created it probably did not enjoy
• Rebecca Ferguson seems like an extremely fun person
• As my colleague Josh Kurp noted in our work chat, you need to hear the way the word “Googling” sounds in her British accent
• I don’t know why she has a toothpick but I support her decision here regardless

Get her and Dakota Johnson on a podcast at once.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE – DUDE, GO WATCH BOTTOMS

I have been yammering about how good Bottoms is for months now, ever since I rented it on a whim one weekend last fall and proceeded to laugh for 90 minutes straight. “It’s so good!” I shouted. “It’s got Ayo Edebiri from The Bear in it!” I yelled. “Marshawn Lynch plays the faculty advisor of an all-girl high school fight club that two teens start in the hopes of hooking up with their cheerleader crushes!” I screeched. I get excited sometimes.

A bunch of people listened to me and watched it, which was helpful for both my emotional well-being and my vocal cords, but some people were very adamant about holding out until they could watch it on one of the streaming services they already pay for. Well, guess what: It’s streaming now. It’s on Prime Video. You can watch it for free on the same website where you purchase the plumbing fixtures the Road House guys were yelling about.

Here, for the record, is the official description of the movie, which comes from the creative team of Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennot.

In this refreshingly unique comedy, two girls, PJ and Josie, start a fight club as a way to lose their virginities to cheerleaders. And their bizarre plan works! The fight club gains traction, and soon the most popular girls in school are beating each other up in the name of self-defense. But PJ and Josie find themselves in over their heads and in need of a way out before their plan is exposed.

And here’s a blockquote from, uh, me, where I tried to explain how weird and wonderful it is.

This is the hardest part to explain. The closest I’ve come to getting there is “it somehow is both an earnest movie about high school and also a satire of a movie about high school.” It’s weird. In a good way. So, like, yes, it is a little bit “every high school movie you’ve ever seen about horny teens trying to hook up” but also, like, the high school football hero gets served steak at lunch while everyone else eats slop. The teachers and students just casually swear at each other. There are, like, murders and property damage and it’s all just fine. You kind of have to accept the universe the movie exists inside and then proceed from there.

WATCH BOTTOMS

IT’S GOOD

IT’S STREAMING

YOU HAVE NO MORE EXCUSES

THANK YOU

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me at brian.grubb@uproxx.com (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Sara:

I’m sure a million people have sent this to you but I need to be sure you saw Walton Goggins’ Instagram post with Timothy Olyphant. Boyd and Raylan! I’m not sure how I would’ve reacted if I saw the two of them on the sidewalk together like this but I suspect there would be at least a little squealing.

Okay, first of all, this is the Instagram post Sara was talking about, which you have to scroll through a little to get to the squeal-worthy image.

But more importantly, in the interest of full disclosure, I suspect my reaction would involve a little squealing, too.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To England!

Dot and Carl Smith said they wanted to find a new companion for Harold the donkey after his best friend, a goat called Billy, died at Christmas.

They are now meeting three new goats to see if they could be a perfect match.

This should be a reality show.

Harold will meet two potential suiters – a pair of pygmy goats from Cambridgeshire – on Saturday.

The couple, from Bitteswell, Leicestershire, are also set to meet a nanny goat on the same day, who could also join the family.

THIS SHOULD BE A REALITY SHOW

The arrival of the nanny goat is not yet confirmed until the couple have a chat to his owner.

LET HAROLD MEET THE NANNY GOAT

I CARE ABOUT THIS SO MUCH NOW (???)

I JUST WANT HAROLD TO BE HAPPY

“Hopefully, it goes to plan. I’ve not mentioned it to Harold because I don’t want to disappoint him.”

HE SEEMS LIKE A SWEET BOY

Mrs Smith added: “[Harold] is a big boy, but he’s a sweet boy.”

I KNEW IT