Laura Radford/Amazon Prime Video/MGM Studios
"Road House" director Doug Liman said Amazon didn't pay him "a cent" despite 50 million people watching the action movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal on Prime Video. He compared Amazon to Apple TV+, which he said was "above board."
The movie, a reboot of the 1989 film starring Patrick Swayze, premiered on Prime Video in March and, according to the streaming service, was watched by 50 million people within the first two weekends of its release.
Liman previously criticized Amazon for releasing the film direct-to-streaming and wrote a scathing column for Deadline in January. In it, he said that the studio originally agreed to give "Road House" a traditional theatrical release, but plans changed.
Ahead of the release of his new Apple TV+ movie, "The Instigators," Liman called himself an "advocate" for streaming services in an interview with IndieWire published on Wednesday, and said he had "no issue" with them because these platforms provide constant work for actors, directors, and writers.
Liman added that he had an issue specifically with how Amazon handled "Road House," and claimed that nobody who worked on it was compensated for its huge success.
"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," Liman said. "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."
Typically, actors, directors, and producers receive bonuses depending on how well a movie performs. However, the model that most creatives are used to has changed because streaming success isn't as easy to quantify financially, compared to theatrical ticket sales.
Cases like "Road House" are part of why the writers' and actors' unions went on strike from May to November last year. Many were campaigning for fairer compensation from streaming platforms and other issues like the use of AI and digital replicas in TV and film.
But Liman said that some streamers are getting it right.
"In the case of Apple, right from the beginning, we said we're making this for streaming, our contracts compensated streaming, we're all compensated for it being on streaming — there's something called a streaming buyout — so Apple has been above-board from the beginning," he said.
If Liman and the rest of the "Road House" crew had made similar agreements with Amazon, then they would've been rewarded for the action film's huge success.
Representatives for Amazon and Prime Video did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
