‘Road House’ remake hit with lawsuit from original screenwriter over copyright and AI claims

nypost.com:

hit with a lawsuit over its 2024 remake of the 1989 action flick “Road House.”The off-screen drama began Tuesday when the original film’s screenwriter, R.

Lance Hill, filed a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement for refusing to license his 1986 screenplay for the original movie which starred the late Patrick Swayze.According to the lawsuit, Hill, 81, also claimed that Amazon used AI to mimic the voice of the movie’s stars in order to meet a self-imposed deadline — which was impacted by both the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strikes.In response, an Amazon MGM spokesperson told Entertainment Weekly that “the lawsuit filed by R.

Lance Hill regarding ‘Road House’ today is completely without merit and numerous allegations are categorically false.”“The film does not use any AI in place of actors’ voices,” the statement continued. “We look forward to defending ourselves against these claims.”A source close to the production claims no AI was used to recreate the actor’s voices and if anything had been used, it would have been cut early on by filmmakers.

Additionally, studio executives were reportedly warned early on to remove any AI or non-union performers from the final cut of the film.Hill claims that both MGM and Amazon ignored his attempt to recover the rights to his film and “steamrolled ahead with the production of a remake of the 1989 film.” “Road House” was further plunged into chaos when director Doug Liman announced that he would not be attending the March 8 SXSW premiere of the film, claiming that Amazon lied to him about the movie being in theaters.