Aug 11, 2017
Pop quiz, hot shot - it's the summer of 1994 and there have
already been dozens of Die Hard knock-offs in the wake of
that franchise's success. How do you get your film to stand out
from the rest of that pack? In the case of Speed, the
first step was hiring director Jan de Bont and trusting in some of
his more unconventional decisions. The next was to bring Joss
Whedon aboard for a rewrite of the script that removed some of its
more overt Die
Hard-isms.
There was a lot about Speed that probably made 20th
Century Fox very nervous. de Bont was a first time director, no one
knew who Sandra Bullock was, and Keanu Reeves had no track record
for opening this type of film. Their faith in the project was of
course handsomely rewarded, but the story behind this production is
still a fascinating one.
All three of us remembered absolutely loving this movie... but it
had been a good 15-20 years since we'd seen it. Does it work as
well now as it did back then?
Topics include: the original choices for Jack, Annie, and Howard,
Whedon's contributions to the script, the poor bus passenger who's
consistently saddled with the worst dialogue, Sam's slow and
painful off-screen death, why this composer was worth fighting for,
the incredible opening set piece, some issues with the final
showdown, a few of the more baffling aspects of Speed 2,
and much much more!