Jake Gyllenhaal’s ‘Road House’ Attracts 50 Million Worldwide Viewers Over Initial Two Weekends, Amazon Says
“Road House,” the Jake Gyllenhaal-led remake of the Patrick Swayze cult favorite, appears to be a hit on Prime Video. Amazon MGM Studios, which operates the streamer, announced that the action film has attracted over 50 million worldwide viewers on the service over its first two weekends. That makes it the studio’s “most-watched produced film debut ever on a worldwide basis.”
There are a number of caveats in that statement. It’s unclear if “Road House” was more popular, for instance, than a film like “Coming 2 America,” which Amazon bought from Paramount and later debuted on Prime. The company also did not stipulate what it considers a “view” — in other words, how much of “Road House” did consumers actually watch before Amazon counted them as part of its audience? Also, “debut” is being used somewhat capaciously, with Amazon reporting the numbers after two weekends instead of one, which makes them look bigger. Amazon’s viewership figure isn’t just limited to that Friday through Sunday period. It includes the first ten days that it was available to customers (“Road House” debuted on March 21).
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The film did, however, perform strongly on Luminate’s weekly streaming rankings, with 1.7 billion minutes watched between March 22 and March 28 making it the most-watched streaming original of the week and pointing to an estimate of 13.9 million views in the U.S. (Disclosure: Variety and Luminate share a common owner in Penske Media Corp.)
“Road House’s” path to streaming success wasn’t always a smooth one. Doug Liman, the film’s director, slammed the studio for not releasing the movie in theaters before launching it on Prime in a January open letter. He threatened to boycott the film’s SXSW premiere, but ultimately attended the festivities anyway. Gyllenhaal said in an interview that “Amazon was always clear” that the film would launch on Prime.
“Road House” was written by Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry. Joel Silver produced the film, which also stars Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams, Joaquim de Almeida, Conor McGregor, and Lukas Gage, among others.
“The groundbreaking, successful debut of ‘Road House’ is a testament to the hard work and commitment from the entire ‘Road House’ filmmaking team and the film’s cast led by the phenomenal Jake Gyllenhaal,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios.
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