Road House is one of the most successful pieces of content ever produced by Prime Video, but from the very beginning, it had controversy written all over it. It seems Prime Video is making a habit of constantly cheating Doug Liman and the entire cast of Road House.
Previously, Doug Liman disclosed that Prime Video had promised him a theatrical release but later backed off from that promise. Now, as Doug Liman claims, Amazon is not clear about the payment either.
When a movie like this gets theatrical success at the box office, everyone gets a cut of it, receiving some sort of monetary rewards. For any OTT content, it’s the same. For example, when a series like Suits boomed on Netflix, everyone who worked on it started getting some sort of monetary rewards.
But that’s not the case with Amazon and Road House.
“First of all, I have no issue with streaming,” Liman said. “We need streaming movies because we need writers to go to work and directors to go to work and actors to go to work, and not every movie should be in a movie theater. So I’m a big advocate of TV series, of streaming movies, of theatrical movies; we should have it all.”
But what he added later showcases how bad the whole situation really is.
“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. Then Amazon switched it on us, and nobody got compensated,” he added. “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.”
It is true that marketing is a crucial part of making a show hot, and the OTT platforms do most of the work in this area, from advertisement to promotion. But that doesn’t give them the freedom to deprive the cast and makers of the monetary aspect of the show. If it is a hit, and Prime Video definitely made a massive profit out of it, the crew and cast should be rewarded as well.
The relationship between Liman and Amazon isn’t the best, as he even intended to boycott the world premiere of Road House, and the tension is quite real and valid to some extent.
If things like this continue to happen, it’s not just the creators who will lose their voice; the OTT platforms will start establishing a monopoly, which might be the end of entertainment as we know it today.
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