Road House 2 has found its director. The Jake Gyllenhaal movie is a follow-up to the 2024 Road House, in which he played UFC fighter turned bouncer Dalton. The 2024 тιтle was a remake of the 1989 Patrick Swayze movie of the same name, which itself spawned a 2006 sequel starring Johnathon Schaech as the son of Swayze’s character. The upcoming Road House 2 was originally announced in May 2024, roughly two months after it debuted on Prime Video on March 21.
Per Variety, Guy Ritchie is now attached to direct Road House 2. Ritchie has an established working relationship with star Jake Gyllenhall, having previously directed him in 2023’s The Covenant and the Henry Cavill action thriller In the Grey, which is currently in post-production. Ritchie will be stepping in for Doug Liman, who helmed the previous installment. He joins a crew that includes screenwriter Will Beall (Bad Boys: Ride or Die), executive producer Ivan Atkinson, and a team of producers that includes Nine Stories Productions’ Jake Gyllenhaal and Josh McLaughlin alongside Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven and Alex Gartner.
What This Means For Road House 2
Ritchie Is A Good Match For The Movie
It makes sense that a new filmmaker will be taking the helm of the sequel. While Amazon has said that the project was always meant to have a streaming debut, Liman claims that his compensation did not properly reflect the fact that the project was originally developed as a theatrical release for MGM before the studio was acquired by Amazon. However, the decision to partner with Ritchie for the project makes sense for multiple reasons alongside his previous collaborations with the Road House star and the Liman’s dissatisfaction, which is further detailed below via comments he made to IndieWire:
My issue on Road House is that we made the movie for MGM to be in theaters, everyone was paid as if it was going to be in theaters, and then Amazon switched it on us and nobody got compensated. Forget about the effect on the industry — 50 million people saw Road House — I didn’t get a cent, Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t get a cent, [producer] Joel Silver didn’t get a cent. That’s wrong.
For one thing, Ritchie has a great deal of experience developing projects for streamers. His experience in the arena includes creating the hit Netflix series The Gentlemen, executive producing the new Paramount+ crime drama show MobLand, and directing the upcoming movie Fountain of Youth for Apple TV+. Additionally, Guy Ritchie movies are known for showing colorful characters in gritty situations, an approach that is a cornerstone of the overall Road House franchise.
Our Take On Guy Ritchie Directing Road House 2
It Offers Him An Unusual Opportunity
One element of Guy Ritchie boarding Road House 2 is the fact that he has only ever helmed one direct sequel in his entire career. That would be 2011’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which followed his 2009 movie Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. In addition to giving him the chance to helm another sequel, this marks the first time that he has ever helmed a sequel to somebody else’s movie, offering him an opportunity to show a side of himself as a filmmaker that he has never had before.
Source: Variety & IndieWire
