The Road House Remake Used Pillow Fights To Make The Punches Look Brutal

Amazon Prime Video is releasing a remake of the '80s classic "Road House" this year, one that will star Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role (stepping in for the late Patrick Swayze). Director Doug Liman's new take on the film will be changing things up in several ways. For one, Gyllenhaal's version of Dalton will be an ex-UFC fighter. Whether or not he does any throat-ripping remains to be seen. But it sounds like the filmmakers really upped the ante in the action department as well. How so? By implementing, er, very fancy, high-tech pillow fights.

Speaking in the latest issue of Total Film magazine, stunt coordinator Garrett Warren, whose credits range from "Charlie's Angels" to "Logan," revealed that he employed a technique he first used on James Cameron's "Avatar." That film's mostly digital world being crafted through impressive CGI meant he didn't have to use it much, but it became known as the "Garrett shot," "multiple pass," or "alphabet shot." Consisting of several stages, it begins with shooting a fight with actors trading fake punches and reactions purely acted out. Warren then explained what comes after:

"The next thing you do is, you remove one person from the equation, and you put a pad there. You say to that [remaining] person, 'Hit this pad as hard as you can.' And that person lays into it, and hits it with all their might — and it looks awesome."

The next step involves taking out the person doing the hitting and bringing back the person about to be hit. As Warren explained, this step allows for the body on the receiving end of the blow to actually react physically, as if the blow were real:

"Then you remove that person, and you swap. You say to the person (about to be hit), 'Do not react. Do not try to sell this punch. Just be ready for the character that you are.' I take this pad — it's a very soft, square pad — and you jam it at them. You hit them for real. Anybody — a girl, a guy, a child. It doesn't matter because it's basically a glorified pillow fight. It'll look like a UFC fighter getting hit in the face, and trying to keep their composure. It's wild."

Then comes the final steps of the process. Liman, Warren, and the crew would film a slow-motion take with the stars performing the fight at reduced speed. "Like when you were a kid," Gyllenhaal added for the sake of comparison. This is then followed by a "clean pass," meaning a shot with no one in it just to get the scenery. At last, all the different layers from these various shots are stitched together. The red rectangular pad is removed and the final shot is a composite of everything that was filmed.

Composite shots are nothing new, as they've been employed by filmmakers for decades. It's how Michael Keaton played many different versions of himself in "Multiplicity," for example. But this is a rather inventive way of employing multiple versions of a shot to stitch together a satisfying version of a fight scene.

Liman, it's worth noting, is no slouch when it comes to action filmmaking, having directed hits such as Matt Damon's "The Bourne Identity" and the sci-fi favorite "Edge of Tomorrow." Warren wasn't certain the director would want to use this technique for all of the movie's fight scenes, but that's precisely what ended up happening:

"I thought, 'OK, we'll do this magic trick once or twice, maybe three times.' But no, not with Doug. Doug wanted to do it the whole time. The shots were never cut. When you see this movie, the fights are way beyond any fight that has ever been filmed in cinema history. This is something that is groundbreaking."

It does, indeed, sound like Liman and co. poured a lot into this remake to try and make it stand out, rather than just go beat-for-beat with the original. Unfortunately, it has been a bit messy behind the scenes. Liman fought very hard for a theatrical release, even going so far as to pen an open letter that was published by Deadline, calling out Amazon for not putting the film in theaters. Liman will not be at the film's premiere at SXSW in Austin, Texas. A lawsuit from the original film's writer, R. Lance Hill, was also filed recently, which alleged, among other things, that Amazon used AI to replicate actors' voices during last year's Screen Actors Guild strike.

The cast for the new films also includes Daniela Melchior ("The Suicide Squad"), Billy Magnussen ("No Time to Die"), Lukas Gage ("Down Low"), and UFC star Conor McGregor.

"Road House" premieres March 21, 2024, on Prime Video.