Two years after a sequel to Amazon’s Road House was first announced, the director is finally offering an update on Jake Gyllenhaal‘s action thriller. While we’re still waiting to see whether it’ll make the 2026 movie schedule, director Ilya Naishuller is talking about the massive scope of this action-packed follow-up.
Naishuller had a chance to speak about Road House 2 to ScreenRant and express just how excited he was for everyone to see it. The director shared his reaction to the movie, currently in post-production, once he first got the script:
There was a script for Road House 2 that I read, where there thing that I was immediately like, ‘how do we respond to that?’ I think we have a great story, we have the fantastic Jake Gyllenhaal, we have an incredible cast of people around him like Dave Bautista. Not going into any detail, we had everybody in one corridor. It wasn’t day one or anything, but I was walking through it and telling Jake, ‘That’s a massive film in there. I can’t wait for it to be shared with everybody.’
Just look at Dave Bautista’s movies to see how he could immediately improve Road House 2. Of course, Illya Naishuller’s response was cagey on many other details, considering we still don’t know for sure when we’ll be able to stream it with a Prime subscription.
As for how he may put his own mark on the Road House movies, Naishuller said he doesn’t plan on deviating too much from what the first director Doug Liman did. He spoke on it further, noting that the goal as a director is always different when it comes to working on a major franchise:
The point of working in a franchise is not to make it your own. It’s about adding yourself to the story while pleasing the core audience and grabbing some more people. It’s like Heads of State. I remember Amazon saying, ‘It’s worth trying to make everything bigger.’ I loved to hear it. You don’t always need to insert more of yourself. There are so many ideas, we did these bits in the room, but at a certain point, you understand that it’s getting to be a distraction.
It’s good to hear such passion for Road House 2, and the hint that things are going to be “bigger.” Though I am a bit frustrated that we still have little to go on in terms of what the story is about. So far, we’ve heard that Jake Gyllenhaal is “excited” about the movie, which is great, but it’s not like a star is going to actively talk down their next payday.
We also know that former UFC star Conor McGregor will not return for the sequel. McGregor’s breakout performance was one of the highlights of the first movie, and as much as I want to believe the sequel won’t make me miss his character, that’s going to be a big hole to fill for Road House 2.
Of course, adding Big Dave Bautista to the mix is going to make any movie better, and we know a lot of other UFC stars will be in the sequel. Whether those professional fighters will have the same acting chops as McGregor, we have yet to see. Deadline reported a while back that we’ll see Rico Verhoeven, Michael Chandler, Michael “Venom” Page, Dustin Poirier, Stephen Thompson, and Tyron Woodley join the fray. Quite a lineup of fighters, but who knows how they’ll factor into this upcoming adventure.
Road House 2 is expected to come out sometime in late 2026, or possibly even be bumped to 2027. I remain thrilled for its arrival in the meantime, even if I do wish we could’ve seen McGregor return to the film franchise for another round.