Writer Of Original ‘Road House’ Sues Amazon Over Copyright Threat And Alleged Use Of AI

As Amazon prepares to release their remake of 1989’s Road House starring Nightcrawler’s Jake Gyllenhaal, the original film’s screenwriter has hit them with a lawsuit. Variety reports that R. Lance Hill (who uses the pen name David Lee Henry) has filed a suit against Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and, by extension, Amazon Studios. 

Hill claims that MGM and Amazon disregarded him and allegedly did not allow him to reclaim the rights to the original screenplay he wrote in 1986. He alleges that he had requested for the copyright to be returned to him after its expiration in November 2023. Hill claims he filed this petition to the U.S. Copyright Office in 2021 before the remake began production. 

Additionally, Hill alleges that Amazon Studios used artificial intelligence technology to create new lines of ADR (automated dialogue replacement) during this summer’s SAG-AFTRA strike in order to complete production on the film before the rights relapsed on November 10, 2023. Still, the suit goes on to allege that the film was not finished until January, long after the copyright deadline passed. The suit also claims that the film, which is meant to retell and reimagine the story, allegedly has some “key literary elements [that are] substantially similar” to Hill’s 1986 script. 

One section of the suit reads “On Nov. 11, 2023, the Screenplay’s copyright thereby duly reverted to Hill under the Copyright Act. Yet, in contravention of the Act’s fundamental authorial termination right, Defendants refused to acknowledge Hill’s statutory termination. Instead, Defendants steamrolled ahead with the production of a remake of the 1989 Film derived from Hill’s Screenplay.”

While the Road House remake gives Hill a “story by” credit, Hill hopes to block the distribution of the film. Road House has had an incredibly troubled production even before this suit. The film’s director Doug Liman has boycotted the film’s streaming release after Amazon decided not to open it in movie theaters. Amazon has so far declined to comment on Hill’s lawsuit. The film is set to premiere at SXSW on March 8 before its wide release by Prime Video on March 21.