Director Doug Liman Attends Premiere of His New ROAD HOUSE Movie at SXSW

Doug Liman in Attendance at Road House Premiere at SXSW

After swearing he wouldn’t attend, Doug Liman was just recently at the Paramount Theatre to see his new film, Road House, with a crowd at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

Film director Doug Liman recently had a well-publicized battle with streaming giant, Amazon, in regards to Liman trying to get his new movie, Road House, to be shown (first) exclusively in theaters. Amazon opted to send Road House directly to streaming instead of giving it a theatrical release. But, tonight, Liman got to see his film on the big screen at South by Southwest where it had its premiere.

There were two sides of a very complex story which unfolded. One from Liman and one from Amazon. In any event, Liman caved in and went to see Road House at its premiere tonight at South by Southwest. Liman had previously planned not to attend this event. He didn’t, however, introduce the movie. Jake Gyllenhaal, the film’s star, seemingly took that honor.

A remake of a rip-roaring Patrick Swayze movie from the late 1980’s, Road House felt to Liman like a film that needed to be seen with an audience on the big screen to get the full effect of the picture. Liman is well-known for sneaking into his movies with an audience to get the viewers’ overall response to his pictures. According to Liman, his Road House tested just as strongly as, if not better than, The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The latter film was the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie action picture extraordinaire which was a sensational worldwide box-office hit.

Road House will start streaming on Amazon on March 21st. It co-stars Conor McGregor alongside Gyllenhaal and is an action-packed good time, judging from the film’s trailers and the tone of the original movie on which it was based. The South by Southwest premiere will be Liman’s opportunity to see the film with a crowd as he had originally hoped for from the beginning.

It’s a tough business where the profit margins of a theatrical release vs. a streaming one have been under close examination. The original Swayze film only grossed $30 million back then, but adjusted for inflation, a theatrical release could have shown that Gyllenhaal’s remake may have scored big numbers at the box-office. In any event, South by Southwest is where Road House will ultimately get its moment of glory and viewers were in attendance at the Paramount Theatre tonight to see if the movie lived up to the hype.

Many expect that the new picture was a successful event tonight and Liman was, indeed, there to take it all in, proving that even though Road House didn’t get a big theatrical release, it had its fifteen minutes of fame at the Paramount where South by Southwest fans will remember seeing it on the big screen– the way Liman intended.

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