20 facts you might not know about 'Speed'

Writer Graham Yost (a Hey Dude alum, funnily enough) was told about the 1975 film Runaway Train by his dad. The film got Jon Voight and Eric Roberts Oscar nominations, and it's about, well, a runaway train. Additionally, Yost’s dad had incorrectly told his son the train couldn’t stop because a bomb was on board. Eventually Yost watched Runaway Train and thought it would be better if there had been a bomb involved. Also, it was a bus instead.

Have you heard of a “bottle episode” of a TV show? Originally, Speed was basically a bottle movie. It took place entirely on the bus. Also, the bus was originally not able to go below 20 miles per hour, before a friend suggested he boost it to 50. Oh, and it was called “Minimum Speed,” until Yost realized that the word “minimum” didn’t exactly lend itself to excitement.

Speed is often referred to as “Die Hard on a bus.” In fact, the first choice for director was John McTiernan, who had directed Die Hard. Also, he turned it down because, well, he thought it was too much like Die Hard. However, McTiernan did suggest the eventual director, Jan de Bont. De Bont had worked as the director of photography on, yes, Die Hard.

Yost and de Bont were set up at Paramount, but then Paramount ended up passing. They then took it to 20th Century Fox, who said they would greenlight it if scenes were added that were not on the bus. This is when de Bont suggested the elevator set piece, as he had been trapped in an elevator once when he was working on, you guessed it, Die Hard.

When the film was at Paramount, Jeff Speedman had been hired to play the male lead Jack Traven. 20th Century Fox wasn’t in on Speedman, though. Stephen Baldwin was offered the role, but he thought Jack was too much like Die Hard hero John McClane, so he passed. Ultimately, de Bont cast Reeves based on his work in Die Hard.

De Bont didn’t want Jack to have long hair, wanting him to appear more straitlaced and “in control of himself.” Reeves rolled with that and shaved his head. Like, completely. De Bont said the studio brass were freaked out when they saw it, and his hair only grew in a bit by the time filming started.

Originally, Annie was going to be a paramedic in order to explain why she could handle driving a speeding bus. At that point, Halle Berry was offered the role, but she turned it down. Then, she was turned into a Driver’s Ed teacher and a comedic sidekick, with Ellen DeGeneres in mind. Eventually, they settled on Annie as a sidekick and love interest in one, and that’s when Sandra Bullock won the role.

Yost’s script had gotten rewritten by a writer that he has left unnamed during the production process. He leaves the writer unnamed because he says that the script was rendered “terrible.” Yost had to spend three days reworking that draft, and then a script doctor was brought in. That would be Joss Whedon, one of Hollywood’s leading quipsters for years until it turned out approximately half the people who have worked with him find him to be a nightmare. Yost has readily said that Whedon ended up rewriting “98.9 percent of the dialogue,” but they were working on the script together and were “very much in sync.” They just excelled at different things.

It’s not surprising that “Pop quiz, hotshot” was a Whedon line. However, he also helped reshape a couple of the characters. He and Reeves worked together to turn Jack from a quipping maverick to a “polite guy trying not to get anybody killed.” Whedon also changed Alan Ruck’s character from a smarmy lawyer who would be used as kill count fodder to a nice tourist in over his head.

Originally, Detective Harry Temple, Jack’s coworker played by Jack Daniels in the movie, was going to be revealed to be the real villain of the film. Then, Dennis Hopper was cast as Howard Payne. Yost realized that Hopper carried so much gravitas as the villain that he could shoulder the load himself, and the script was rewritten so that Temple was not involved in the bombs.

Reeves was having a tough time while filming Speed, as his friend River Phoenix died due to a drug overdose at this time. He would get into the process, though, especially the physical stuff. Specifically, he really wanted to do the stunt where Jack jumps from the Jaguar onto the bus. De Bont was against it, but Reeves practiced it in secret. Indeed, much to de Bont’s dismay, Reeves ended up doing the stunt himself for the film.

Reeves wanted to do his own stunts — and he ended up doing a lot of them — but don’t think Bullock was just sitting back and relaxing. She actually learned how to drive a bus for the movie. In fact, Bullock took the test and everything, and she passed it — giving her an actual license to drive a bus.

Harry has a picture of a woman on his desk. One assumes that’s supposed to be the character’s wife. In reality, though, that was a photo of de Bont’s wife, Trish.

The movie was shot, in part, on actual California interstate highways the 105 and the 110. Specifically, they were using the area now known as the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange. It was not officially open at the time of filming, so they didn’t have to worry about traffic or the logistics of shooting. Large sections of the highway were actually still missing, which gave de Bont the idea for the bus jump scene.

Jack breaks the glass in the bus door at the beginning of the film. It certainly pops on screen, but it was actually a total accident. They just decided to keep it in the movie, which was probably a wise decision.

As depicted in the film, the bus jump is physically impossible. Mythbusters put that to the test. They had to use a ramp to make it happen, which you can see in the movie. Still, that proved difficult. The bus was empty other than the stunt driver, and they emptied the bus out to make it as light as possible. On the first try, the bus crashed, which they kept secret from the studio. On the second try, the bus went further than expected and smashed a camera. Fortunately, another camera further away caught it.

Jack wears a Casio G-Shock DW-5600C watch, which had been discontinued by the time the movie hit theaters. However, the film led to such a fervor to get the watch that Casio put it back into production to fulfill the demand.

Like Die Hard before it, Speed proved a star-making hit. Not just commercially, but critically. Roger Ebert gave it four stars, and it was on several critics’ end-of-year top-10 lists. It was also a big hit at the box office. Maybe for somewhere in the $30 million to $37 million range, it made a whopping $350.5 million worldwide. In fact, it was the No. 1 movie in Japan for 10 weeks.

It’s not surprising that Speed won big at the MTV Movie Awards. It’s weird that it was nominated for three Kids’ Choice Awards, as this is decidedly an R-rated movie. Interestingly, it was nominated for three Oscars, winning two. The film took home awards for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing.

Speed begat Speed 2: Cruise Control. This time, they were on a boat. Also, Reeves decided not to return, so Jason Patric stepped into the lead role alongside Bullock returning as Annie. Even the presence of Willem Dafoe as the villain couldn’t change things. Speed has a 94 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Speed 2 is at four percent.