These days, fans are used to getting remakes and reboots of past classics from both the small and big screens. Whether it’s The Running Man, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Crow, Scrubs, The Fall Guy, or any number of other projects, it’s become commonplace to see some of your favorite classic hits or underrated gems get their time back in the spotlight. What is not typical is seeing one property get two sequel movies, especially after an already successful reboot, but that’s exactly what’s happening now.
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Last year, Amazon MGM Studios teamed up with director Doug Liman and star Jake Gyllenhaal to deliver the well-received Road House remake, which was released directly on Prime Video. The film was a hit, so it’s not surprising that there’s a sequel in development, but what is surprising is that not only will Liman not be involved with the sequel (via Deadline), but he’s actually teaming up with the Road House writer R. Lance Hill to create their own direct sequel to the original film, and this began to take shape after Liman’s partnership with Amazon MGM went south.
Liman and Hill’s film is titled Road House: Dylan, and will be a direct sequel to the original 1989 film starring Patrick Swayze. Meanwhile, Amazon MGM’s Road House 2 will move forward with director Ilya Naishuler and will bring back Gyllenhaal, along with new additions Dave Bautista, Aldis Hodge, and Leila George. They are two different directions for the franchise, but the core idea seems to be similar, and it will be interesting to see if both ultimately end up hitting the screen.
As for how there can be two films based on the same property from two different people, that is due to a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit disputes ownership of the franchise, with Hill and attorney Marc Toberoff stating that Hill wrote the script for the original as a spec script, and under Section 203 of the U.S. Copyright Act, Hill would then recapture the rights to his screenplay on November 11th, 2023, which would be a full 35 years.
Section 203 allows authors to reclaim the copyrights to their original works, with the only caveat being if it was created as a work for hire, which Hill says it was not, and that he wrote it independently and sold it at auction. Hill says that as a result, Amazon MGM’s previous remake infringed on those rights, since he would have already reclaimed them, but Amazon MGM disputes this. The studio says his claim to those rights is invalid because the script was sold through his loan-out corporation (Lady Amos Inc.), and so it qualifies as a work for hire instead.
Liman initially met with Hill during the development of his Road House film with Amazon MGM, and got to know him, and now he is firmly in Hill’s corner and helping to establish a competing chain of title. This also ties to Liman’s sour relationship with Amazon MGM after they changed plans and made his theatrical film into a purely streaming project, which Liman did not sign off on. Liman looks to make his film on Hill’s script if they win the court case, but it’s not known if it could move into production before the case is settled or decided upon. We’ll just have to wait and see, as this is an ongoing case, but it’s certainly a unique situation that you don’t see every day.
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