Where was Road House filmed? The Dominican Republic spots where the Amazon movie was shot
Jake Gyllenhaal’s action-packed reboot rolled out the cameras from Las Vegas to the DR
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Your support makes all the difference.Amazon’s Road House remake swung onto screens on Thursday, and this rendition of Patrick Swayze’s cult classic has taken things beachside.
An all-star cast, including Jake Gyllenhaal and Conor McGregor, feature in director Doug Liman’s take on the 80s action movie that was originally set in Missouri and shot across California.
This time around, middle-weight UFC fighter turner bouncer Elwood Dalton is hired to clean up the act of a roadhouse in Glass Key, a fictional Florida Key town “just south of Marathon”.
Though the Florida Keys network of islets, bridges and islands, as well as local landmark Fred the Tree on the Old Seven Mile Bridge, are captured in some frames, filming primarily took place in the Dominican Republic.
Production of the Swayze remake started in 2022, and film commissioner Chad Newman told keysnews.com: “Ninety-nine per cent of the movie is filmed in the DR.”
From Sin City to Havana’s older sister, Santo Domingo, here are the US and DR destinations to get into the ring with Road House.
Las Vegas, Nevada
The cast and crew headed to Las Vegas, Nevada during the UFC 285 event at MGM Grand Garden Arena in March 2023 to film a walkout and face-off scene between Elwood Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Jax Harris (Jay Hieron).
UFC president Dana White, and announcer Jon Anik, alongside several sports fans, featured in the footage and Gyllenhaal, in an interview with Novastream, said that there were “five alternate plans” for filming depending on “how much time the UFC would grant us to be in the octagon”.
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Santo Domingo’s cobbled streets have an aesthetic of bygone Spanish colonial glory in the southeast of the Caribbean island, and the capital’s palm-framed streets doubled as the onshore destination of Glass Key, according to IMDb.
It is here where the ex-UFC fighter discovers that the “paradise is not all it seems” at the beachside roadhouse.
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
A famed holiday hotspot in east DR, Punta Cana is a hedonist’s dream destination, with everything from high-end resorts and casinos to white sand beaches and turquoise shallows.
With scuba schools, water sports and parties aplenty, the setting was an ideal host for the action-packed sequences and stunts explored in the Road House reboot, as well as Dalton’s houseboat – aptly named ‘The Boat’.
Road House is streaming now on Prime Video.
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