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Speed (film)
Encyclopedia
Speed is a 1994 American action-thriller film directed by Jan de Bont
, and set in Los Angeles
. LAPD
officer Jack Traven becomes the focus of a bomber and extortion
ist, retired Atlanta bomb squad sergeant, Howard Payne. After Payne escapes his first entanglement with Traven, he sets up a bomb
on a city bus that Traven boards and must keep moving above 50 miles per hour or the bomb will explode. The film stars Keanu Reeves
, Dennis Hopper
, Sandra Bullock
and Jeff Daniels
. It won two Academy Awards for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects at the 67th Academy Awards
in 1995.
members Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves
) and Harry Temple (Jeff Daniels
) prevent the deaths of several civilians in a trapped elevator in a skyscraper, triggered by bombs set by Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper
), an embittered retired bomb squad officer. Jack and Harry attempt to stop Payne's escape, but Payne takes Harry hostage. Jack shoots Harry in the leg, forcing Payne to retreat without him; Payne then sets off an explosion, apparently killing himself. Jack and Harry are given a heroes' ceremony, and Harry is promoted to Detective and given a desk job due to his injury.
The next day, Jack witnesses a commuter bus explode, killing the driver. Payne contacts him on a nearby payphone, and making another ransom demand, explaining that he has planted a bomb on another bus; the bomb will arm itself if the bus exceeds 50 miles per hour, and then detonate if the bus falls below that speed, and he will also detonate the bomb if they attempt to remove any of the passengers. Jack races to catch the bus on the busy freeways, but arrives too late to stop the bomb from arming. He daringly boards the bus to explain the situation to the driver Sam (Hawthorne James
), but a paranoid passenger, believing Jack to be there to arrest him, brandishes a gun and fires, wounding Sam. Annie Potter (Sandra Bullock
) takes the wheel as Sam is cared for, and Jack explains the situation to the passengers. Jack is able to see and describe the bomb, including a cheap-looking gold watch, to Harry, who recognizes it as a common retirement gift for police officers. Unfortunately, before an attempt to disarm it can be made, the bus runs into numerous traffic obstacles, forcing Annie to desperately maneuver the bus to keep it above 50 miles per hour at all costs. Meanwhile, the police arrange an escort with Traven's captain mapping a barely survivable route from a following helicopter.
Eventually, the police guide the bus onto an empty freeway section under construction. Jack arranges a deal with Payne to off-load Sam onto a police flatbed truck pacing the bus to tend to his wounds. Another passenger attempts to exit the bus, but in doing so, Payne detonates a small charge under the bus stairs, sending the passenger under the bus. The freeway contains a large uncompleted overpass, but Jack and Annie work together to successfully jump it, and drive on towards Los Angeles International Airport
, where they will be able to circle indefinitely on the empty runway without oversight from news helicopters with its restricted airspace. Jack convinces Payne to temporarily let him off the bus, and attempts to use a sled towed by a police vehicle ahead of the bus to disarm the bomb, but debris on the tarmac makes it impossible, and Jack is forced to use a service panel to get back into the bus safely, rupturing the gas tank while doing so.
Meanwhile, Harry has identified Payne's local home, and he and other SWAT members raid it, only to find it armed with a bomb, killing them all. Jack becomes violently angry after learning of this, but allows him to discover that Payne is monitoring the bus via an on-board camera. The police use the news crew's equipment to create a looped signal to override the one sent by the camera to fool Payne, and arrange to move the passengers off the bus. Jack and Annie escape on a floor panel after sending the unmanned bus on its own, where it crashes into a taxiing cargo plane and explodes; the two realize they have started to fall in love.
Jack, Annie, and the police regroup downtown to the ransom drop-off point, hoping to catch Payne. Payne discovers the deception, and posing as a police officer, abducts Annie and straps her into a vest covered with explosives set to go off with the pressure trigger he holds. Jack follows them into the subway system. Payne hijacks a subway train and speeds off, strapping Annie to the car's frame, but Jack catches up and boards on time. Payne finally gets his money, only to set off dyepack paint bombs ruining the money. Enraged, he goes up to the roof. Jack and Payne start to fight on the roof of the speeding subway train, with Jack eventually besting Payne by decapitating him with one of the ceiling signal lights. After disarming Annie's bomb, he finds the train's brakes are inoperable, and instead speeds up the train, hoping it will derail on a curved part of track instead of crashing into a dead end. Jack's plan works as the subway car crashes through a section under construction, and lands on Hollywood Boulevard. Scarred but alive, the two kiss again, affirming their newfound relationship.
was told by his father, television host Elwy
, about a film called Runaway Train
starring Jon Voight
, about a train that speeds out of control. The film was based on an idea by Akira Kurosawa
. Elwy mistakenly believed that the train's situation was due to a bomb on board. Such a theme had in fact been used in the 1975 Japanese movie The Bullet Train
. After seeing the Voight movie, Graham decided that it would have been better if there had been a bomb on board a bus with the bus being forced to travel at 20 mph to prevent an actual explosion. A friend suggested that this be increased to 50 mph.
, the first choice for the role of Jack Traven, felt the character (as written in the earlier version of the script) was too much like the John McClane character from Die Hard
. Director Jan de Bont then cast Keanu Reeves as Jack Traven after seeing him in Point Break
. He felt that the actor was "vulnerable on the screen. He's not threatening to men because he's not that bulky, and he looks great to women". Reeves did not like how the character of Jack Traven came across in Graham Yost's original screenplay. He felt that there were "situations set up for one-liners and I felt it was forced — Die Hard mixed with some kind of screwball comedy". Jan de Bont brought in Joss Whedon
a week before principal photography started to work on the script. With Reeves' input, Whedon changed Traven from being "a maverick hotshot" to "the polite guy trying not to get anybody killed", and removed the character's glib dialogue and made him more earnest. Reeves had dealt with the LAPD before on Point Break, and learned about their concern for human life, which he incorporated into Traven. One of Whedon's significant contributions was changing the character of Doug Stephens (Alan Ruck
) from a lawyer, "a bad guy and he died", according to the writer, to a tourist, "just a nice, totally out-of-his-depth guy". Whedon worked predominantly on the dialogue, but also created a few significant plot points, like the killing of Harry Temple. Sandra Bullock came to read for Speed with Reeves to make sure there was the right chemistry between the two actors. Originally, Bullock's character "Annie" was intended to be a comical sidekick to Jack. Instead, Annie became both Jack's sidekick and later love interest. She recalls that they had to do "all these really physical scenes together, rolling around on the floor and stuff". The director did not want Traven to have long hair and wanted the character "to look strong and in control of himself". To that end, Reeves shaved his head almost completely. The director remembers, "everyone at the studio was scared shitless when they first saw it. There was only like a millimeter. What you see in the movie is actually grown in". Reeves also spent two months at Gold's Gym
in Los Angeles to get in shape for the role.
died. Immediately after Phoenix died, de Bont changed the shooting schedule to work around Reeves and give him scenes that were easier to do. "It got to him emotionally. He became very quiet, and it took him quite a while to work it out by himself and calm down. It scared the hell out of him", de Bont recalls. Initially, Reeves was nervous about the film's many action sequences but as the shooting progressed he became more involved. He wanted to do the stunt where Traven jumps from a Jaguar onto the bus himself. Jan de Bont did not want him to do it, but Reeves rehearsed it in secret. On the day of the sequence, the actor did the stunt himself and de Bont remembers, "I almost had a heart attack".
Eleven GM New Look buses and one Flxible
Metro bus were used in the filming of the movie. Two of them were blown up, one was used for the high-speed scenes, one had the front cut off for inside shots, and one was used solely for the "under bus" shots. Another bus was used for the bus jump scene, which was done in one take.
Many of the freeway scenes in the movie were filmed on California's Interstate 105
and Interstate 110, which was not officially open at the time of filming. While scouting this location, De Bont noticed big sections of road missing and told screenwriter Graham Yost to add the bus jump over the unfinished freeway to the script. The jump was filmed on the fifth-level HOV lane ramp of the massive stack interchange
. In the scene where the bus must jump across a gap in an uncompleted elevated freeway-to-freeway ramp while still under construction, a ramp was used to give the bus the necessary lift off so that it could jump the full fifty feet. The bus used in the jump was empty except for the driver, who wore a shock-absorbing harness that suspended him mid-air above the seat, so he could handle the jolt on landing, and avoid spinal injury (as was the case for many stuntmen in previous years that were handling similar stunts). The highway section the bus jumped over was a regular highway, with the gap added in the editing process using computer-generated imagery
.
On a commentary track on the region 1 DVD, De Bont reports that the bus jump stunt did not go as planned. To do the jump the bus had everything possible removed to make it lighter. On the first try the stunt driver missed the ramp and crashed the bus, making it unusable. This failure was not reported to the studio at the time. A second bus was prepared and two days later a second attempt was successful. But, again, things did not go as intended. Advised that the bus would only go about 20 feet, the director placed one of his multiple cameras in a position that was supposed to capture the bus landing. However, the bus traveled much farther airborne than anyone had thought possible. It crashed down on top of the camera and destroyed it. Luckily, another camera placed about 90 feet from the jump ramp recorded the event.
Filming of the final scenes occurred at Mojave Airport, which doubled for Los Angeles International Airport
. The shots of the LACMTA Metro Red Line through the construction zone were shot using an 1/8 scale model of the Metro Red Line, except for the jump when it derailed.
Speed began filming on September 1, 1993 and completed filming on December 23, 1993.
Speed was a critical and a commercial success. On the review website Rotten Tomatoes
, 90% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 41 reviews, and an average rating of 7.6/10. Film critic Roger Ebert
gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "Films like Speed belong to the genre I call Bruised Forearm Movies, because you're always grabbing the arm of the person sitting next to you. Done wrong, they seem like tired replays of old chase cliches. Done well, they're fun. Done as well as Speed, they generate a kind of manic exhilaration". In his review for Rolling Stone
, Peter Travers wrote, "Action flicks are usually written off as a debased genre, unless, of course, they work. And Speed works like a charm. It's a reminder of how much movie escapism can still stir us when it's dished out with this kind of dazzle". Hal Hinson, in his review for The Washington Post
, praised Sandra Bullock's performance: "The only performer to stand out is Sandra Bullock as Annie ... If it weren't for the smart-funny twist she gives to her lines — they're the best in the film — the air on that bus would have been stifling ... she emerges as a slightly softer version of the Linda Hamilton
-Sigourney Weaver
heroines: capable, independent, but still irresistibly vulnerable". In her review for The New York Times
, Janet Maslin
wrote, "Mr. Hopper finds nice new ways to convey crazy menace with each new role. Certainly he's the most colorful figure in a film that wastes no time on character development or personality". Entertainment Weekly
gave the film an "A" rating and Owen Gleiberman
wrote, "It's a pleasure to be in the hands of an action filmmaker who respects the audience. De Bont's craftsmanship is so supple that even the triple ending feels justified, like the cataclysmic final stage of a Sega death match". Time
magazine's Richard Schickel
wrote, "The movie has two virtues essential to good pop thrillers. First, it plugs uncomplicatedly into lurking anxieties -- in this case the ones we brush aside when we daily surrender ourselves to mass transit in a world where the loonies are everywhere".
Entertainment Weekly magazine's Owen Gleiberman ranked Speed as the eighth best film of 1994. The magazine also ranked the film eighth on their "The Best Rock-'em, Sock-'em Movies of the Past 25 Years" list. Speed also ranks 451 on Empire
magazine's 2008 list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". The film was also placed at #99 on the American Film Institute
's 100 Years...100 Thrills list, detailing the 100 "most heart-pounding" American movies of all time.
and laserdisc
formats for the very first time. Rental and video sales did very well and helped the film's domestic gross. The original VHS cassette was only available in standard format at the time and in 1996 Fox Video re-released a VHS version of the film in widescreen allowing the viewer to see the film in a similar format to its theatrical release. In 1998, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released Speed on DVD for the very first time. The DVD was in a widescreen format but other than the film's theatrical trailer the DVD contained no extras aside from the film. In 2002, Fox released a special collector's edition of the film with many extras and a remastered format of the film. Fox re-released this edition several times throughout the years with different covering and finally in November 2006 Speed was released on a Blu-ray Disc
format with over five hours of special features.
, the film was nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, Best Sound (Gregg Landaker
, Steve Maslow
, Bob Beemer
, David MacMillan
) and Best Sound Effects Editing, winning the latter two.
Also Sandra Bullock won the Saturn Award
for Best Actress and was nominated for 3 MTV Movie Awards
, winning two.
In addition to the above release, a separate album featuring 40 minutes of Mark Mancina's score from the film was released on 30 August 1994. It should be noted that the CD track order was not released in the chronological order of the events in the film.
Speed: Original Motion Picture Score
agreed to star again as Annie, for financial backing for another project, but Keanu Reeves
declined the offer to return as Jack. As a result, Jason Patric
was written into the story as Alex Shaw, Annie's new boyfriend, with her and Jack having broken up due to her worry about Jack's dangerous lifestyle. Willem Dafoe
starred as the villain John Geiger, and Glenn Plummer
(who played Reeves' carjacking victim) also cameos
as a boat driver. The film is considered one of the worst sequels of all time, barely reaching 2% on Rotten Tomatoes. Sandra Bullock herself mocked this movie's performance and has admitted to regretting being a part of it.
Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan...
, and set in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. LAPD
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
officer Jack Traven becomes the focus of a bomber and extortion
Extortion
Extortion is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime...
ist, retired Atlanta bomb squad sergeant, Howard Payne. After Payne escapes his first entanglement with Traven, he sets up a bomb
Bomb
A bomb is any of a range of explosive weapons that only rely on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy...
on a city bus that Traven boards and must keep moving above 50 miles per hour or the bomb will explode. The film stars Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Charles Reeves is a Canadian actor. Reeves is perhaps best known for his roles in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Speed, Point Break and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix...
, Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
, Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Annette Bullock is an Academy Award winning American actress and producer who rose to fame in the 1990s after roles in successful films such as Demolition Man, Speed, The Net, A Time to Kill, and While You Were Sleeping. She continued with films such as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House,...
and Jeff Daniels
Jeff Daniels
Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels is an American actor, musician and playwright. He founded a non-profit theatre company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan...
. It won two Academy Awards for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects at the 67th Academy Awards
67th Academy Awards
The 67th Academy Awards, honoring the best films of 1994, were held on March 27, 1995 at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, California. They were hosted by well-known comedian and talk show host David Letterman....
in 1995.
Plot
Los Angeles SWATSWAT
A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
members Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Charles Reeves is a Canadian actor. Reeves is perhaps best known for his roles in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Speed, Point Break and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix...
) and Harry Temple (Jeff Daniels
Jeff Daniels
Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels is an American actor, musician and playwright. He founded a non-profit theatre company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan...
) prevent the deaths of several civilians in a trapped elevator in a skyscraper, triggered by bombs set by Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
), an embittered retired bomb squad officer. Jack and Harry attempt to stop Payne's escape, but Payne takes Harry hostage. Jack shoots Harry in the leg, forcing Payne to retreat without him; Payne then sets off an explosion, apparently killing himself. Jack and Harry are given a heroes' ceremony, and Harry is promoted to Detective and given a desk job due to his injury.
The next day, Jack witnesses a commuter bus explode, killing the driver. Payne contacts him on a nearby payphone, and making another ransom demand, explaining that he has planted a bomb on another bus; the bomb will arm itself if the bus exceeds 50 miles per hour, and then detonate if the bus falls below that speed, and he will also detonate the bomb if they attempt to remove any of the passengers. Jack races to catch the bus on the busy freeways, but arrives too late to stop the bomb from arming. He daringly boards the bus to explain the situation to the driver Sam (Hawthorne James
Hawthorne James
Hawthorne James is an American actor and director, best known for his role as Big Red Davis in the 1991 film The Five Heartbeats. He is also known for his role as Sam, the injured bus driver, in Speed ....
), but a paranoid passenger, believing Jack to be there to arrest him, brandishes a gun and fires, wounding Sam. Annie Potter (Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Annette Bullock is an Academy Award winning American actress and producer who rose to fame in the 1990s after roles in successful films such as Demolition Man, Speed, The Net, A Time to Kill, and While You Were Sleeping. She continued with films such as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House,...
) takes the wheel as Sam is cared for, and Jack explains the situation to the passengers. Jack is able to see and describe the bomb, including a cheap-looking gold watch, to Harry, who recognizes it as a common retirement gift for police officers. Unfortunately, before an attempt to disarm it can be made, the bus runs into numerous traffic obstacles, forcing Annie to desperately maneuver the bus to keep it above 50 miles per hour at all costs. Meanwhile, the police arrange an escort with Traven's captain mapping a barely survivable route from a following helicopter.
Eventually, the police guide the bus onto an empty freeway section under construction. Jack arranges a deal with Payne to off-load Sam onto a police flatbed truck pacing the bus to tend to his wounds. Another passenger attempts to exit the bus, but in doing so, Payne detonates a small charge under the bus stairs, sending the passenger under the bus. The freeway contains a large uncompleted overpass, but Jack and Annie work together to successfully jump it, and drive on towards Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport is the primary airport serving the Greater Los Angeles Area, the second-most populated metropolitan area in the United States. It is most often referred to by its IATA airport code LAX, with the letters pronounced individually...
, where they will be able to circle indefinitely on the empty runway without oversight from news helicopters with its restricted airspace. Jack convinces Payne to temporarily let him off the bus, and attempts to use a sled towed by a police vehicle ahead of the bus to disarm the bomb, but debris on the tarmac makes it impossible, and Jack is forced to use a service panel to get back into the bus safely, rupturing the gas tank while doing so.
Meanwhile, Harry has identified Payne's local home, and he and other SWAT members raid it, only to find it armed with a bomb, killing them all. Jack becomes violently angry after learning of this, but allows him to discover that Payne is monitoring the bus via an on-board camera. The police use the news crew's equipment to create a looped signal to override the one sent by the camera to fool Payne, and arrange to move the passengers off the bus. Jack and Annie escape on a floor panel after sending the unmanned bus on its own, where it crashes into a taxiing cargo plane and explodes; the two realize they have started to fall in love.
Jack, Annie, and the police regroup downtown to the ransom drop-off point, hoping to catch Payne. Payne discovers the deception, and posing as a police officer, abducts Annie and straps her into a vest covered with explosives set to go off with the pressure trigger he holds. Jack follows them into the subway system. Payne hijacks a subway train and speeds off, strapping Annie to the car's frame, but Jack catches up and boards on time. Payne finally gets his money, only to set off dyepack paint bombs ruining the money. Enraged, he goes up to the roof. Jack and Payne start to fight on the roof of the speeding subway train, with Jack eventually besting Payne by decapitating him with one of the ceiling signal lights. After disarming Annie's bomb, he finds the train's brakes are inoperable, and instead speeds up the train, hoping it will derail on a curved part of track instead of crashing into a dead end. Jack's plan works as the subway car crashes through a section under construction, and lands on Hollywood Boulevard. Scarred but alive, the two kiss again, affirming their newfound relationship.
Cast
- Keanu ReevesKeanu ReevesKeanu Charles Reeves is a Canadian actor. Reeves is perhaps best known for his roles in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Speed, Point Break and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix...
as Police Officer III Jack Traven - Dennis HopperDennis HopperDennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
as Howard Payne - Sandra BullockSandra BullockSandra Annette Bullock is an Academy Award winning American actress and producer who rose to fame in the 1990s after roles in successful films such as Demolition Man, Speed, The Net, A Time to Kill, and While You Were Sleeping. She continued with films such as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House,...
as Annie Porter - Jeff DanielsJeff DanielsJeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels is an American actor, musician and playwright. He founded a non-profit theatre company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan...
as Police Officer III / Detective II Harry Temple - Joe MortonJoe MortonJoseph Thomas "Joe" Morton, Jr. is an American stage, television, and film actor.-Early life:Morton was born in The Bronx, a borough of New York City, New York. He is the son of Evelyn, a secretary, and Joseph Thomas Morton, Sr., a U.S. army intelligence officer. Because of his father's...
as Lieutenant II "Mac" McMahon - Richard LinebackRichard LinebackRichard D. Lineback is an American actor. He has performed in character roles in such blockbuster films as Speed, Twister and Varsity Blues. He played Deputy Dodd in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning....
as Sergeant II Norwood - Alan RuckAlan RuckAlan Ruck is an American film, stage and television actor, perhaps best known for his roles as Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Stuart Bondek on Spin City.-Early life:...
as Doug Stephens - Margaret Medina as Police Officer III Robin Barnette
- Hawthorne JamesHawthorne JamesHawthorne James is an American actor and director, best known for his role as Big Red Davis in the 1991 film The Five Heartbeats. He is also known for his role as Sam, the injured bus driver, in Speed ....
as Sam - Beth GrantBeth GrantBeth Grant is an American actress. She is known for often playing characters who are conservatives, religious zealots or sticklers for rules....
as Helen - Glenn PlummerGlenn PlummerGlenn E. Plummer is an American film and television actor.Plummer was born in Richmond, California. He has appeared in numerous films and television series, primarily in supporting roles or small bit parts, such as High Top in Colors. His prominent roles came in the films Menace II Society, Speed,...
as "Tuneman" (Jaguar Owner) (later named "Maurice" in Speed 2: Cruise ControlSpeed 2: Cruise ControlSpeed 2: Cruise Control is a 1997 action–thriller film, and a sequel to Speed . The film was produced and directed by Jan de Bont, and written by Randall McCormick and Jeff Nathanson, based on a story by de Bont and McCormick. Sandra Bullock stars in the film, reprising her role from Speed,...
)
Production
Inspiration
Screenwriter Graham YostGraham Yost
Graham John Yost is a Canadian film and television screenwriter. His most famous works are the hit 1994 film Speed, Broken Arrow, and Hard Rain....
was told by his father, television host Elwy
Elwy Yost
Elwy McMurran Yost, CM was a television host, best known for hosting CBC Television's weekday Passport to Adventure series from 1965–67, and TVOntario's weekday Magic Shadows, from 1974 until the mid-1980s, and Saturday Night at the Movies from 1974–99.-Early life:Born in Weston, Ontario, the son...
, about a film called Runaway Train
Runaway Train (film)
Runaway Train is a 1985 film about two escaped convicts and a female train worker who are stuck on a runaway train as it barrels through snowy desolate Alaska. It stars Jon Voight as Oscar "Manny" Manheim, Eric Roberts as Buck, John P. Ryan as Associate Warden Ranken and Rebecca De Mornay as Sara...
starring Jon Voight
Jon Voight
Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight is an American actor. He has received an Academy Award, out of four nominations, and three Golden Globe Awards, out of nine nominations. Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie....
, about a train that speeds out of control. The film was based on an idea by Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...
. Elwy mistakenly believed that the train's situation was due to a bomb on board. Such a theme had in fact been used in the 1975 Japanese movie The Bullet Train
The Bullet Train
is a 1975 Japanese disaster film directed by Junya Sato and starring Sonny Chiba and Ken Takakura.-Plot:Tetsuo Okita is a former businessman who lost his manufacturing company to bankruptcy and separated from his wife and son a year earlier...
. After seeing the Voight movie, Graham decided that it would have been better if there had been a bomb on board a bus with the bus being forced to travel at 20 mph to prevent an actual explosion. A friend suggested that this be increased to 50 mph.
Casting
Stephen BaldwinStephen Baldwin
Stephen Andrew Baldwin is an American actor, director, producer and author. One of the Baldwin brothers, he is known for his roles as William F. Cody in the western show The Young Riders and as Stuart in the movie Threesome...
, the first choice for the role of Jack Traven, felt the character (as written in the earlier version of the script) was too much like the John McClane character from Die Hard
Die Hard
Die Hard is a 1988 American action film and the first in the Die Hard film series. The film was directed by John McTiernan and written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. It is based on a 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp titled Nothing Lasts Forever, itself a sequel to the book The Detective, which...
. Director Jan de Bont then cast Keanu Reeves as Jack Traven after seeing him in Point Break
Point Break
Point Break is a 1991 action film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Lori Petty and Gary Busey. The title refers to the surfing term point break, where a wave breaks as it hits a point of land jutting out from the coastline.The film was a box office success upon...
. He felt that the actor was "vulnerable on the screen. He's not threatening to men because he's not that bulky, and he looks great to women". Reeves did not like how the character of Jack Traven came across in Graham Yost's original screenplay. He felt that there were "situations set up for one-liners and I felt it was forced — Die Hard mixed with some kind of screwball comedy". Jan de Bont brought in Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon
Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures...
a week before principal photography started to work on the script. With Reeves' input, Whedon changed Traven from being "a maverick hotshot" to "the polite guy trying not to get anybody killed", and removed the character's glib dialogue and made him more earnest. Reeves had dealt with the LAPD before on Point Break, and learned about their concern for human life, which he incorporated into Traven. One of Whedon's significant contributions was changing the character of Doug Stephens (Alan Ruck
Alan Ruck
Alan Ruck is an American film, stage and television actor, perhaps best known for his roles as Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Stuart Bondek on Spin City.-Early life:...
) from a lawyer, "a bad guy and he died", according to the writer, to a tourist, "just a nice, totally out-of-his-depth guy". Whedon worked predominantly on the dialogue, but also created a few significant plot points, like the killing of Harry Temple. Sandra Bullock came to read for Speed with Reeves to make sure there was the right chemistry between the two actors. Originally, Bullock's character "Annie" was intended to be a comical sidekick to Jack. Instead, Annie became both Jack's sidekick and later love interest. She recalls that they had to do "all these really physical scenes together, rolling around on the floor and stuff". The director did not want Traven to have long hair and wanted the character "to look strong and in control of himself". To that end, Reeves shaved his head almost completely. The director remembers, "everyone at the studio was scared shitless when they first saw it. There was only like a millimeter. What you see in the movie is actually grown in". Reeves also spent two months at Gold's Gym
Gold's Gym
Gold's Gym International, Inc. is an international chain of co-ed fitness centers originally started in California by Joe Gold. Each gym features a wide array of exercise equipment, group exercise classes and personal trainers to assist clients...
in Los Angeles to get in shape for the role.
Principal photography
De Bont used an 80-foot model of a 50-story elevator shaft for the opening sequence. While Speed was in production, actor and close friend to Reeves, River PhoenixRiver Phoenix
River Jude Phoenix was an American film actor, musician, and teen icon. He was the oldest brother of fellow actors Rain, Joaquin, Liberty, and Summer Phoenix.Phoenix began acting at age 10 in television commercials...
died. Immediately after Phoenix died, de Bont changed the shooting schedule to work around Reeves and give him scenes that were easier to do. "It got to him emotionally. He became very quiet, and it took him quite a while to work it out by himself and calm down. It scared the hell out of him", de Bont recalls. Initially, Reeves was nervous about the film's many action sequences but as the shooting progressed he became more involved. He wanted to do the stunt where Traven jumps from a Jaguar onto the bus himself. Jan de Bont did not want him to do it, but Reeves rehearsed it in secret. On the day of the sequence, the actor did the stunt himself and de Bont remembers, "I almost had a heart attack".
Eleven GM New Look buses and one Flxible
Flxible
The Flxible Co. was a motorcycle sidecar, funeral car, ambulance, intercity coach and transit bus manufacturing company based in the United States that was founded in 1913, and which closed in 1996.-History:In 1913, Hugo H. Young and Carl F...
Metro bus were used in the filming of the movie. Two of them were blown up, one was used for the high-speed scenes, one had the front cut off for inside shots, and one was used solely for the "under bus" shots. Another bus was used for the bus jump scene, which was done in one take.
Many of the freeway scenes in the movie were filmed on California's Interstate 105
Interstate 105 (California)
Interstate 105 is an Interstate Highway in southern Los Angeles County, California that runs east–west from near the Los Angeles International Airport to Norwalk...
and Interstate 110, which was not officially open at the time of filming. While scouting this location, De Bont noticed big sections of road missing and told screenwriter Graham Yost to add the bus jump over the unfinished freeway to the script. The jump was filmed on the fifth-level HOV lane ramp of the massive stack interchange
Stack interchange
A stack interchange is a free-flowing grade separated junction between two roads.In countries where one drives on the right, left turns are handled by semi-directional flyover/under ramps...
. In the scene where the bus must jump across a gap in an uncompleted elevated freeway-to-freeway ramp while still under construction, a ramp was used to give the bus the necessary lift off so that it could jump the full fifty feet. The bus used in the jump was empty except for the driver, who wore a shock-absorbing harness that suspended him mid-air above the seat, so he could handle the jolt on landing, and avoid spinal injury (as was the case for many stuntmen in previous years that were handling similar stunts). The highway section the bus jumped over was a regular highway, with the gap added in the editing process using computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
.
On a commentary track on the region 1 DVD, De Bont reports that the bus jump stunt did not go as planned. To do the jump the bus had everything possible removed to make it lighter. On the first try the stunt driver missed the ramp and crashed the bus, making it unusable. This failure was not reported to the studio at the time. A second bus was prepared and two days later a second attempt was successful. But, again, things did not go as intended. Advised that the bus would only go about 20 feet, the director placed one of his multiple cameras in a position that was supposed to capture the bus landing. However, the bus traveled much farther airborne than anyone had thought possible. It crashed down on top of the camera and destroyed it. Luckily, another camera placed about 90 feet from the jump ramp recorded the event.
Filming of the final scenes occurred at Mojave Airport, which doubled for Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport is the primary airport serving the Greater Los Angeles Area, the second-most populated metropolitan area in the United States. It is most often referred to by its IATA airport code LAX, with the letters pronounced individually...
. The shots of the LACMTA Metro Red Line through the construction zone were shot using an 1/8 scale model of the Metro Red Line, except for the jump when it derailed.
Speed began filming on September 1, 1993 and completed filming on December 23, 1993.
Reception
Speed was released on June 10, 1994 in 2,138 theaters and debuted at the number one position, grossing $14.5 million on its opening weekend. It went on to gross $121.3 million domestically and $229.2 million internationally for a worldwide total of $350.5 million.Speed was a critical and a commercial success. On the review website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 90% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 41 reviews, and an average rating of 7.6/10. Film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "Films like Speed belong to the genre I call Bruised Forearm Movies, because you're always grabbing the arm of the person sitting next to you. Done wrong, they seem like tired replays of old chase cliches. Done well, they're fun. Done as well as Speed, they generate a kind of manic exhilaration". In his review for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, Peter Travers wrote, "Action flicks are usually written off as a debased genre, unless, of course, they work. And Speed works like a charm. It's a reminder of how much movie escapism can still stir us when it's dished out with this kind of dazzle". Hal Hinson, in his review for The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, praised Sandra Bullock's performance: "The only performer to stand out is Sandra Bullock as Annie ... If it weren't for the smart-funny twist she gives to her lines — they're the best in the film — the air on that bus would have been stifling ... she emerges as a slightly softer version of the Linda Hamilton
Linda Hamilton
Linda Carroll Hamilton is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Sarah Connor in The Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Catherine Chandler in the television series Beauty and the Beast, for which she was nominated for two Golden Globes and an Emmy...
-Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
heroines: capable, independent, but still irresistibly vulnerable". In her review for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
wrote, "Mr. Hopper finds nice new ways to convey crazy menace with each new role. Certainly he's the most colorful figure in a film that wastes no time on character development or personality". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film an "A" rating and Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
wrote, "It's a pleasure to be in the hands of an action filmmaker who respects the audience. De Bont's craftsmanship is so supple that even the triple ending feels justified, like the cataclysmic final stage of a Sega death match". Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....
wrote, "The movie has two virtues essential to good pop thrillers. First, it plugs uncomplicatedly into lurking anxieties -- in this case the ones we brush aside when we daily surrender ourselves to mass transit in a world where the loonies are everywhere".
Entertainment Weekly magazine's Owen Gleiberman ranked Speed as the eighth best film of 1994. The magazine also ranked the film eighth on their "The Best Rock-'em, Sock-'em Movies of the Past 25 Years" list. Speed also ranks 451 on Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
magazine's 2008 list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". The film was also placed at #99 on the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
's 100 Years...100 Thrills list, detailing the 100 "most heart-pounding" American movies of all time.
Home media
In November 1994, Fox Video released Speed on VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
formats for the very first time. Rental and video sales did very well and helped the film's domestic gross. The original VHS cassette was only available in standard format at the time and in 1996 Fox Video re-released a VHS version of the film in widescreen allowing the viewer to see the film in a similar format to its theatrical release. In 1998, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released Speed on DVD for the very first time. The DVD was in a widescreen format but other than the film's theatrical trailer the DVD contained no extras aside from the film. In 2002, Fox released a special collector's edition of the film with many extras and a remastered format of the film. Fox re-released this edition several times throughout the years with different covering and finally in November 2006 Speed was released on a Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
format with over five hours of special features.
Awards
In 199567th Academy Awards
The 67th Academy Awards, honoring the best films of 1994, were held on March 27, 1995 at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, California. They were hosted by well-known comedian and talk show host David Letterman....
, the film was nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, Best Sound (Gregg Landaker
Gregg Landaker
Gregg Landaker is an American sound engineer. He won three Academy Awards for Best Sound and has been nominated for four more in the same category...
, Steve Maslow
Steve Maslow
Steve Maslow is an American sound engineer. He won three Academy Awards for Best Sound and has been nominated for four more in the same category...
, Bob Beemer
Bob Beemer
Robert Joseph Beemer, is an American sound mixer who won four Oscars.-Biography:Bob Beemer was born on February 8, 1955, at Queen of Angels Hospital in Hollywood, California...
, David MacMillan
David MacMillan (sound engineer)
David MacMillan is an American sound engineer. He has won three Academy Awards for Best Sound. He has worked on over 70 films since 1973.-Selected filmography:* The Right Stuff * Speed * Apollo 13 -External links:...
) and Best Sound Effects Editing, winning the latter two.
Also Sandra Bullock won the Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
for Best Actress and was nominated for 3 MTV Movie Awards
MTV Movie Awards
The MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV . It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by producers and executives at MTV. Winners are decided online by the general...
, winning two.
Soundtrack
A soundtrack album featuring "songs from and inspired by" the film was released on 28 June 1994 with the following tracksIn addition to the above release, a separate album featuring 40 minutes of Mark Mancina's score from the film was released on 30 August 1994. It should be noted that the CD track order was not released in the chronological order of the events in the film.
Speed: Original Motion Picture Score
| Track Number | Track Name | Chronological Order |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Main Title | 1 |
| 2 | The Rescue | 16 |
| 3 | Entering Airport | 13 |
| 4 | Rush Hour | 8 |
| 5 | Helen Dies | 11 |
| 6 | The Gap | 12 |
| 7 | Choppers | 10 |
| 8 | Pershing Square | 17 |
| 9 | Elevator Peril | 4 |
| 10 | Fight on Train | 18 |
| 11 | Dangling Feet | 5 |
| 12 | City Streets | 9 |
| 13 | Wildcat | 15 |
| 14 | The Dolly | 14 |
| 15 | Move | 3 |
| 16 | Pop Quiz | 7 |
| 17 | Freight Elevator | 6 |
| 18 | Elevator Stall | 2 |
| 19 | End Title | 19 |
Sequel
In 1997, a sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control, was released. Sandra BullockSandra Bullock
Sandra Annette Bullock is an Academy Award winning American actress and producer who rose to fame in the 1990s after roles in successful films such as Demolition Man, Speed, The Net, A Time to Kill, and While You Were Sleeping. She continued with films such as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House,...
agreed to star again as Annie, for financial backing for another project, but Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Charles Reeves is a Canadian actor. Reeves is perhaps best known for his roles in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Speed, Point Break and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix...
declined the offer to return as Jack. As a result, Jason Patric
Jason Patric
Jason Patric is an American film, television and stage actor. He may be best-known for his roles in the films The Lost Boys, Sleepers, Your Friends & Neighbors, Narc, The Losers and Speed 2: Cruise Control. His father was actor/playwright Jason Miller...
was written into the story as Alex Shaw, Annie's new boyfriend, with her and Jack having broken up due to her worry about Jack's dangerous lifestyle. Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
starred as the villain John Geiger, and Glenn Plummer
Glenn Plummer
Glenn E. Plummer is an American film and television actor.Plummer was born in Richmond, California. He has appeared in numerous films and television series, primarily in supporting roles or small bit parts, such as High Top in Colors. His prominent roles came in the films Menace II Society, Speed,...
(who played Reeves' carjacking victim) also cameos
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
as a boat driver. The film is considered one of the worst sequels of all time, barely reaching 2% on Rotten Tomatoes. Sandra Bullock herself mocked this movie's performance and has admitted to regretting being a part of it.