Everything We Know About The Jake Gyllenhaal Sequel

Rowdy Herrington’s barroom brain-stomper “Road House” has had an interesting pop cultural journey. When it hit theaters 36 years ago, the improbable tale of Dalton (Patrick Swayze), a highly sought-after bouncer (with an NYU philosophy degree) who gets recruited to clean up a once-successful Missouri saloon that’s become “the kind of place where they sweep up eyeballs after closing,” received the kind of reviews you’d expect. Roger Ebert understood it (though lacked the courage to declare it the masterpiece I believe he knew in his heart it was), but his colleagues tore the film to shreds for being just about everything that makes it great: silly, boisterous and gratuitously violent. If they hadn’t walked in expecting to have their intelligence insulted, they would’ve noticed that it was punchily written by Hilary Henkin and David Lee Henry and ferociously well directed.

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Decades later, people possessed of supreme discernment now recognize that Herrington’s “Road House” is a sui generis action classic: a stirring reminder of a time when Hollywood served up red-meat cinema that showcased the dream factory’s pre-CG facility for crafting cinematic sensations stuffed with breathtaking practical stunts, bone-snapping brawls and wildly unnecessary (yet inexplicably essential) sex scenes. They truly don’t make ’em like this anymore.

Case in point: Doug Liman’s 2024 “Road House” remake. Jake Gyllenhaal wasn’t anyone’s ideal Swayze replacement, but he can play the hell out of a likable goofball and pack on the muscle when the role calls for it (e.g. “Southpaw”). With witty Shane Black associates Anthony Bargarozzi and Charles Mondray on board as writers, and Liman’s ability to make a rousingly fun action movie (“Edge of Tomorrow”), this stop at the “Road House” had potential. Instead, they made a brutally unpleasant film that reimagined Dalton as a hair-trigger psychopath. It’s a shockingly mean movie.

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Nevertheless, Liman’s film performed well enough for Amazon MGM Studios to spawn a sequel. We don’t know much at this early date in its development, but we can say for sure that Liman won’t be back in the director’s chair.

Mr. Jake Gyllenhaal will get downright shredded once again to play Elwood Dalton, a former UFC standout who, after killing an opponent (his friend!) in the ring, finds a new, potentially murderous line of work as a bar bouncer in the Florida Keys. Gyllenhaal seemed quite proud of his work in this movie (and gave a performance that perfectly captured the nasty, unhinged intent of the writers), so if you dug his Dalton you can expect more of the vicious same.

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Unless the next film takes a supernatural turn, we have definitely seen the last of Billy Magnussen’s crime boss Ben Brandt, who had his neck broken by hired goon Knox (Conor McGregor). As for UFC star McGregor, the film’s mid-credits sequence revealed that Knox miraculously survived being stabbed many, many times by Dalton. If you’re aware of McGregor’s history of alleged assault, sexual assault and bigoted utterances, you’re probably hoping he’s left out of the sequel. Unfortunately, given that he is an incredibly effective villain in the first movie, it’s hard to imagine Amazon MGM Studios not bringing him back for a rematch with Gyllenhaal’s Dalton.

There’s also no word yet on Daniela Melchior, who played Dalton’s love interest, Ellie, or the rest of the cast who survived the first film. Which brings us to the next question.

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To reasonably discuss the narrative direction of an unmade film, it is essential to have at least a premise and, not to be greedy, have an understanding of who’s writing the thing. Amazon MGM Studios has yet to provide information on the former, but, according to Puck’s Matthew Belloni, the “Road House” sequel will be written by Will Beall.

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I am in awe of Will Beall’s screenwriting career. The former LAPD detective wrote a well-regarded cop novel called “LA REX,” which — after getting optioned by formerly powerful, now disgraced producer Scott Rudin — vaulted him into the warm embrace of Warner Bros. The studio made his shockingly poor adaptation of Paul Lieberman’s “Gangster Squad” (directed by an embarrassingly overmatched Ruben Fleischer), and gave him multiple bites at the superhero blockbuster apple by hiring him to work on “Justice League” and “Aquaman.”

It’s not all bad with Beall! He’s got screenplay credits on the raucously entertaining (and surprisingly heartfelt) duo of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” and “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.” If he can do raucous and heartfelt, he can hopefully do a “Road House” sequel that will be more in line with the Swayze model. This will, of course, depend on who’s directing the film — and good luck predicting what this guy will make of the material.

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Belloni is also reporting that Guy Ritchie is in negotiations to direct the “Road House” sequel. Once (correctly) viewed as a precociously talented crime-flick auteur, Ritchie turned into a for-hire studio stylist before deciding he could work quickly on his own terms (and attract an array of stars to join the on-the-fly party). While I think Ritchie has sacrificed a degree of technical polish to become a churn-and-burn filmmaker, the movies have mostly been really good! “Wrath of Man” rips, “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Gurre” is a silly delight and “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” is a Nazi-killing hoot.

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Nü-“Road House” is Gyllenhaal’s franchise, but Ritchie is a pro’s pro and movie-star-friendly (as he proved with his two “Sherlock Holmes” films led by Robert Downey Jr). He’s more than capable of reining in his new shoot-fast approach and turning in a skillfully shot action movie, à la his crazily underrated “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” His “Wrath of Man” aesthetic might work best here, but I wouldn’t dare advise this man on how to make a movie. He’s one of the best shape-shifters working today, and, if Beall’s script isn’t anti-human, could deliver a “Road House” worthy of St. Patrick.

We should probably let Ritchie finalize his deal with Amazon MGM Studios before we begin speculating as to the release date of the “Road House” sequel, but if that deal makes quickly, a 2026 debut is totally doable. One interesting wrinkle here is that, per Belloni, this movie could be a theatrical release. That would most certainly cheese off Liman, who was furious that the company consigned his remake to a streaming. I’m not sure Ritchie would care one way or the other about how his “Road House” sequel is exhibited, but such a move would probably end Amazon’s relationship with Liman (who has strong Tom Cruise ties).

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Fortunately, for a mega-corporation like Amazon, pain don’t hurt.