Director Doug Liman is boycotting the premiere of his upcoming Road House remake in protest to Amazon’s decision to release the movie straight-to-streaming on their Prime Video platform.
Road House’s premiere is set to take place at the 2024 SXSW film festival in March, and in a statement released to Deadline, Liman said that he won’t be in attendance. According to Liman, his original plan had been to “silently protest Amazon’s decision to stream a movie so clearly made for the big screen,” but that Amazon is “hurting way more than just me and my film,” so he’s speaking up.
“When Amazon bought MGM, one of the few remaining studios making big commercial films for theatrical release (movies like Bond, Creed) they announced that they would put a billion dollars into theatrical motion pictures, releasing at least 12 a year,” said Liman. “They touted it as ‘the largest commitment to cinemas by an internet company.’ I can tell you what they then did to me and my film Road House, which is the opposite of what they promised when they took over MGM.”
Liman says Amazon is more interested in selling toasters and plumbing fixtures
Liman went on to say that he “signed up to make a theatrical motion picture for MGM,” and that Amazon told him to “make a great film and we will see what happens,” and he believes he did. The director said Amazon declared the film a “smash hit” amongst audience test scores, and has also claimed it had the strongest press response of any film since they acquired MGM.
Liman then said that it seemingly didn’t matter what kind of film he made, before saying Amazon has “no interest in supporting cinemas,” but instead wants “to sell plumbing fixtures.”
“Because contrary to their public statements, Amazon has no interest in supporting cinemas,” Liman said. “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.”
Liman’s closed his statement out by saying he isn’t opposed to streaming movies, but is opposed to “Amazon gutting MGM and its theatrical business.”