Speed is a 1994 American action thriller film directed by Jan de Bont in his feature film directorial debut. The film stars Keanu Reeves, John Goodman, Sandra Bullock, Joe Morton, Alan Ruck, and Jesse Plemons. The film tells the story of an LAPD cop who tries to rescue civilians on a city bus rigged with a bomb programmed to explode if the bus slows down below 50 mph. It became a sleeper hit, critically and commercially successful, grossing $350.4 million on a $30 million budget and winning two Academy Awards, for Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing, at the 67th Academy Awards in 1995.
A critically panned sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control, was released on June 13, 1997.
Plot[]
Spoiler Warning: The following contains important plot details of the entire film. |
William and Kelsey fight over something. William and Kelsey play at McDonald's playland. 1 WEEK LATER…….. The video begins with Violette looking at William's homework assignment and he had a copy of it and she found his real homework assignment and he didn't do his homework correctly and he has been throwing a fit and is refusing to redo it and he has been crumbling it up. He had all day to do the homework but he had chosen to play around instead. Violette threatens to upload the video and show his school principle by emailing the video if William doesn't do his homework. After complaining that it's 9:33 PM with William wanting to go to bed and he crumbles his assignment again, Violette decided to send the video to the school and William wanted Violette to turn off the camera and threatens to break it, but Violette threatened to tell his grandma who bought the camera on how he is treating it. Violette asked him to do his homework again because it is only four easy subtraction math problems, but William complains he wants to go to bed but Violette won't let him. He throws even more of a fit than anything else after Violette tells him he has to go to time-out the next day after he hits her. The video ends with William walking off screen to get a pencil, but he went to bed. Because he didn't do his homework, the video was uploaded. The community was first settled in 1830 and continued to develop throughout the decade, beginning with the construction of house settlements along Parr's Ridge. A man named Henry Bussard built the first of these houses. This town was known for its train station on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) at Parr's Ridge. The railroad ran from Baltimore to Frederick, cities to the east and west, respectively, of Mt. Airy. Following 1830, the town received its official name after the suggestion of "Mount Airy" from an Irish B&O worker who complained about his freezing ears on a windy work day. Over the years, milling, canning and sewing industries initially helped support Mt. Airy's economy.
The town's proximity to the National Road contributed to its growth. The National Road ran west from Baltimore to Illinois. By the 1890s, the town's growth had increased significantly and three new churches were built (one Episcopal and two Methodist), along with a very important bridge, still standing and known by residents as the Twin Arch, that helped with railroad transportation. Three great fires (1903, 1914, and 1925) caused setbacks in growth, but the town rebuilt every time.
When Carroll County defined its permanent boundaries in 1837, Mount Airy was divided between two counties, Carroll and Frederick; the town has remained in two counties since that time. About one mile south of the town is the junction of Carroll, Frederick, Howard and Montgomery counties at the source of the South Branch of the Patapsco River.
The town was originally settled in the early 1830s by a core group of six families. Dorsey, Davis and Bussard were the most prominent names in that first settlement, which was followed closely by the construction of the B & O railroad line in 1831. Because Mount Airy sits at an elevation of 830 feet (250 m), a series of four inclined planes were constructed in order for the trains to climb the steep hills. Locomotives and cars were lifted with the assistance of horses and steam winches. Passengers had to disembark during this process. Plane #4, located west of the town at the intersection of Woodville Road and MD Route 144, is still a recognized location today. In 1839 the planes were abandoned, and the new line was constructed north of where Mount Airy is today. This was a result of more powerful locomotives that had been constructed and heavier loads were being hauled. In 1901, a railroad tunnel was constructed on the south side of town and the existing line into town became a spur line into the center of Mount Airy. The town named the first resident, Henry Bussard, the station agent for the new train station. Mr. Bussard was the first major landowner in Mount Airy. Violette upset and irritated because he is making noises over the Xbox. So she goes and tell him to calm down. When he refuses, she made him promise that he will turn off the Xbox soon.
The next scene cuts to where she says that William is still playing. So, Violette took matters into her own hands and turns off the Xbox. William asked her if he can bring something outside and she tells him he can bring anything but the Xbox. Hearing this, William then proceeds to take the TV outside and shoot it with a gun. When his mom takes the gun, William gets a tree branch cutter and stabs the TV before the video ends with "Happy Halloween". Violette gives the fan a tour of her new office (in Lucy's old room) in progress. After giving the fans a tour of her new office, she then says to the fans that her dual monitor system isn't working, and tries to dedicate the remainder of the video explaining to the fans that are tech-savvy of what's wrong with her dual monitor system. William wants to go eat, but she says she needs help with the monitor. So William tries to get it to work, but it still doesn't work. He eventually destroys the monitor in frustration by destroying the screen and breaking the WHOLE thing, and Violette gets mad, and she screams, "WILLIAM!" Violette told William some of her YouTube friends were gonna come and fix it but William keeps hitting the destroyed monitor with a screwdriver, and punctures a lot of holes in it. The monitor now has severe damage. It has lines on the screen and a big hole in the screen too, the frame is completely broken off, and it has a bunch of holes from the screwdriver. William and Violette in the car. William had bought 3 McFlurries from McDonald's (one for him, one for Bill, and one for Andy) as Violette didn't want one since she's on a diet. He decides to prank Bill and Andy by putting laxatives in their McFlurries. Violette tells William not to pour the entire thing into Bill's or Andy's, to which he says he only poured a few teaspoons.
In the house, Bill is sitting in his chair (as always) and Andy is laying on the couch. William tells them he bought McFlurries for them. He asked if they wanted one and both said yes. He hands one to Bill and the other one to Andy. He grabs the third one for himself. Bill and Andy eat theirs too fast which causes Andy to say, "Brain Freeze!". Violette mentions that she likes to eat her treats slow, so she can savor them. William asks why and Andy asks the same thing. Violette zooms the camera over to her cat Pinky.
Andy starts groaning in pain, so Violette and William ask what's wrong, to which Andy says he has to "poop" in an angry tone of voice. Violette tells Andy not to be so blunt. William walks to the bathroom in the hallway and asks Andy what's wrong. "I don't know, I got a stomach-ache," Andy responds.
William laughs silently, Violette tries to tell him to stop, but he gives her the "Shh" signal. Bill gets up from his chair and calls William's name. William asks "What?". Bill wants William to tell Andy to hurry up, because he needs to get in the bathroom too.
Andy tells Bill to wait, but he says that he has to go too. A couple seconds later, Bill tells William to tell Andy to hurry up, to which he does, but Andy yells "I'M TRYING!". William walks over to the gate and tells Bill that Andy is still in there. Bill walks over to the hallway and yells at Andy to hurry up, because he has to go.
Andy tells him he's trying, but it's taking him a while longer to do so. Bill loses his patience and tells Andy he’s gonna poop his pants, to which William tells him he'll poop on the floor if he doesn't come out.
Finally, Andy comes out of the bathroom. Bill squeezes past William and he ends up in the bathroom too. Bill yells at William to get out of the bathroom, which he does and shuts the door.
William grabs a roll of toilet paper. He was about to tell Bill about the prank but decides to wait another while longer. Bill demands William to hand him the toilet paper, but he doesn't listen. William opens the door and asks Bill how he's feeling, but says he feels horrible and demands the toilet paper. Violette asks Andy if he's feeling better yet, but Andy says he might have to go again as his stomach still hurts. William finally gives Bill the toilet paper and tries to shut the door, it fails at first, but it ended up working. William decides to tell Bill the prank, which he did, resulting in Bill and Andy shouting questions and statements.
While Andy takes his hat (which was backwards) off of his head, he yells "WHAT?". Bill shouts "YOU DID THAT AGAIN? YOU FRICKIN JERK!". Andy screams "WHAT THE HECK? OH MY GOD!", before understanding why he has to go again.
William laughs, while Andy is still waiting on Bill to get out of the bathroom and groans, "Oh, Geez!" William filming in the hallway as he hears Violette screaming and saying the Sh-word and some time after that, The F-word at Bill in their bedroom. He confronts Violette about her behavior, and she said that she was uploading a fan-mail video to YouTube, but it disappeared and the video was corrupted right before it uploaded at 98%. William wants to fix the video the next day, but Violette insists on fixing the video right then. Bill is asking them to be quiet. Violette then agrees to go back to sleep and fix the video in the morning. However, William hears more commotion going on from the bedroom, so he comes in to find out that Bill had asked Violette for a drink of water, as she just was falling back to sleep. This causes her to go into rage mode, throwing the water bottle, clothes, a heater and a couple more objects out the window. William then reluctantly agrees to go downstairs and fix the fan-mail video. On her phone, Violette shows William the video, which was originally 21 minutes, was 18 minutes. They attempt to re-film the video, and William reads some of the fan-mail. However, William gets fed up with Violette, threatening him to redo the video and quits. Violette is upset because the video William filmed of her freaking out got published to YouTube and included the parts where she re-opens the fan mail in MOM GOES PSYCHO AND THROWS CLOTHES OFF ROOF!!! At the beginning of the video she apologises to her fans and tells them about of the video's disappearance and tells them like an example like they worked on something, a paper, all night and when they went to save it, it disappeared. She says it made her a little upset and decides to go confront William. She goes in William's room and tells him to remove the fan mail clips, but William refuses. This leads to William and Violette fighting one another. William eventually gets even more angry and screams "Out. Out! Get out! GET OUT!!! GET OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUT!!!" William flips out and loses his temper because he cannot get his heater to work. He hits it with various items and also writes "Hi, I'm a stupid heater" on it with a marker. It turns out that the heater wasn't broken, but rather William didn't plug it in. He takes it outside, slams it with a wood plunk, and then throws it in the pool, breaking it and thus leaving the family with two broken, non-functional heaters. Violette looking through William's backpack since summer is coming to an end and school is starting back up again and planning on going school supply shopping with William. Violette tries to call William and William asks if it's food or ice cream, but Violette says maybe and to go school supply shopping. When William heard this, William responded saying "Ah no! That's not happening!" and said he is not going to school tomorrow which upsets Violette who told him he need to go to school. After that, William then says he will go with Violette to go school supply shopping by coming downstairs then William tricks Violette and goes back upstairs to his room, making Violette so upset and says she will get them herself and won't get William ice cream because of his bad behavior.
The video was then cut to where Violette came home with from Walmart with William's school supplies such as graph papers, binders, notebooks, a plastic container, pencils etc. Violette also mentioned she got happy pencils with emojis on it and when William heard Violette mention ice cream, he thought Violette bought him ice cream but Violette told William that she got ice cream but she got him happy pencils with ice cream emojis on it. When William begins to open the packaging of the emoji pencils and takes one out, he then break it in half and throws it across the room, angering Violette. After breaking the pencils in half and said that’s what I think about those pencils, Violette responds if she wanted to get pencils with mean faces on them and trying to make William smile which then causes William to get up and hit Violette with the happy pencils.
After William broke another pencil and looked at the rest of the school supplies Violette got him, William grabbed the supplies and put them in his backpack. Then William went outside to the driveway and tried putting lighter fuel on his backpack with the supplies inside his backpack but Violette and William get into a tug-o-war with the backpack and school supplies as she tries stops him by taking away his backpack and the lighter fuel so he can't start another fire. Then William goes to the back yard and told Violette "You don't to get burned? I'd advise to stay back" and poured lighter fuel in his backpack and lit it on fire. Violette got so shocked after seeing William lighting his backpack and school supplies on fire and she can even scream because the neighbor will call the police and she told William to put it out and William yells at Violette saying he's not going to school tomorrow but Violette said he's going. Violette tells William to put it out and says his happy pencils were in there and she tell him to get over here and get the fire out and for William to close the door before the cats get out and go get a bucket of water or go get the hose and she says "Oh my gosh, there goes your backpack you had since second grade" and William says "That's what I think of it" and he says "I didn't want to get the school supplies today I told you to leave me alone". Violette shushes while told William to stop being loud because there is a psycho neighbor that could call the police but William ignores that and doesn’t care.
Spoiler Warning: All spoilers have been stated and have ended here. |
Cast[]
- Keanu Reeves as William Anderson
- John Goodman as William “Bill” Anderson
- Sandra Bullock as Violette
- Joe Morton as Lieutenant "Mac" McMahon
- Jesse Plemons as Andrew “Andy” Shipley
- Alan Ruck as Doug Stephens
- Carlos Carrasco as Ortiz
- Glenn Plummer as Jaguar Owner
- Richard Lineback as Sergeant Norwood
- Beth Grant as Helen
- Hawthorne James as Sam Silver
- Richard Schiff as Train Driver
- John Capodice as Bob
Production[]

Part of the film featured the bus making its way onto Interstate 110 through the traffic.
Writing[]
Screenwriter Graham Yost was told by his father, Canadian television host Elwy Yost, 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 film The Bullet Train. After seeing the Voight film, 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 film's end was inspired by the end of the 1976 film Silver Streak. Yost had initially named the film Minimum Speed reflecting on the plot element of the bus unable to drop below a speed. He realized that using "minimum" would immediately apply a negative connotation to the title, and simply renamed it to Speed.
Yost's initial script would have the film completely occur with the bus; there was no initial elevator scene, the bus would have driven around Dodgers Stadium due to the ability to drive around in circles, and would have culminated with the bus running into the Hollywood Sign and destroying it. Upon finishing the script, Yost took his idea to Paramount Pictures, which expressed interest in green-lighting the film and chose John McTiernan due to his blockbuster films Predator, Die Hard, and The Hunt for Red October. However, McTiernan eventually declined to do so, feeling the script was too much of a Die Hard retread, and suggested Jan De Bont, who agreed to direct because he had the experience of being the photography director for action movies, including McTiernan's Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October. Despite a promising script, Paramount passed on the project, feeling audiences would not want to see a movie which takes place for two hours on a bus, so De Bont and Yost then took the project to 20th Century Fox which also distributed Die Hard. Fox agreed to green-light the project on the condition there were action sequences in the film other than the bus. De Bont then suggested starting the film off with the bomb on an elevator in an office building, as he had an experience of being trapped in an elevator while working on Die Hard. Yost used the opening elevator scene to establish Traven as being clever enough to overcome the villain, comparable to Perseus tricking Medusa into looking at her own reflection. Yost then decided to conclude the film on a subway train to have a final plot twist not involving the action on the bus. Fox then immediately approved the project.
In preparing the shooting script, one unnamed author had revised Yost's script in a manner that Yost had called "terrible". Yost spent three days "reconfiguring" this draft. Jan de Bont brought in Joss Whedon a week before principal photography started to work on the script. According to Yost: "Joss Whedon wrote 98.9 percent of the dialogue. We were very much in sync, it's just that I didn't write the dialogue as well as he did." One of Whedon's contributions was reworking Traven's character once Keanu Reeves was cast. Reeves did not like how the Jack Traven character came across in 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." 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.
Yost also gave Whedon credit for the "Pop quiz, hotshot" line. Another of Whedon's 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. Yost had originally planned for Temple to be the villain of the story, as he felt that having an off-screen antagonist would not be interesting. However, Yost recognized that there was a lot of work in the script to establish Temple as this villain. When John Goodman was cast as Howard Payne, Yost recognized that Hopper's Payne readily worked as a villain, allowing them to rewrite Temple to be non-complicit in the bomb situation.
Casting[]
Stephen Baldwin, the first choice for the role of Jack Traven, declined the offer because he felt the character (as written in the earlier version of the script) was too much like the John McClane character from Die Hard. According to Yost, they had also considered Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. Director Jan de Bont ultimately 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 had dealt with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) before on Point Break, and learned about their concern for human life, which he incorporated into Traven. 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.
For the character of Annie, Yost said that they initially wrote the character as African American and as a paramedic as to justify how she would be able to handle driving a speeding bus through traffic. The role was offered to Halle Berry but she declined the part. Later, the character had then been changed to a driver's education teacher, and made the character more of a comic-relief sidekick to Jack, with Ellen DeGeneres in mind for the part. Instead, Annie became both Jack's sidekick and later love interest, leading to the casting of Sandra Bullock. Sandra Bullock came to read for Speed with Reeves to make sure there was the right chemistry between the two actors. She recalls that they had to do "all these really physical scenes together, rolling around on the floor and stuff."
Filming[]
Principal photography began on September 7, 1993, and completed on December 23, 1993, in Los Angeles. De Bont used an 80-foot model of a 50-story elevator shaft for the opening sequence. While Speed was in production, actor and Reeves's close friend River Phoenix 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 in which Traven jumps from a Jaguar onto the bus himself, and rehearsed it in secret after de Bont disapproved. On the day of the sequence, Reeves did the stunt himself, terrifying de Bont in the process. Eleven GM New Look buses and three Grumman 870 buses were used in the film's production. 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.

Eleven GM New Look buses were used to represent the bus in the film.
Many of the film's freeway scenes were filmed on California's Interstate 105 and Interstate 110 at the stack interchange known today as the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange, 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. In the scene in which 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 is the directional ramp from I-105 WB to I-110 NB (not the HOV ramp from I-110 SB to I-105 WB as commonly believed), and as the flyover was already constructed, a gap was added in the editing process using computer-generated imagery. A 2009 episode of Mythbusters attempted to recreate the bus jump as proposed, including the various tricks that they knew were used by the filmmakers such as the ramp, and proved that the jump, as in the film, would never have been possible.
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 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.
Stunt coordinator Tracy Bunting told Interview Magazine that this was "the most challenging" of her career, in particular the iconic "stroller full of cans" scene.
The MD520N helicopter used throughout the film, registration N599DB, Serial LN024, was sold to the Calgary Police Service in 1995, where it was in use until 2006; it was then sold to a private owner.
Reception[]
Box office[]
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, well above its $30 million production budget.
Critical response[]
Speed received critical acclaim and currently has a "certified fresh" score of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 60 reviews with an average rating of 7.9/10. The critical consensus states "A terrific popcorn thriller, Speed is taut, tense, and energetic, with outstanding performances from Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, and Sandra Bullock." The film also has a score of 78 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 17 critics indicating "Generally favorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
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 magazine, 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". 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".[23] 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".[24] 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". Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino (who was also commissioned to direct the film, but declined) named the film one of the twenty best films he had seen since 1992.
Entertainment Weekly magazine's Owen Gleiberman ranked Speed as 1994's eighth best film. 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".
Mark Kermode of the BBC recalled having named Speed his film of the month working at Radio 1 at the time of release, and stated in 2017, having re-watched the film for the first time in many years, that it had stood the test of time and was a masterpiece.
Home media[]
On November 8, 1994, Fox Video released Speed on VHS 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 4/3 TV format at the time and in October 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. On November 3, 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.
Awards and honors[]
Association | Ceremony Date | Category | Recipient | Results |
---|---|---|---|---|
Awards Circuit Community Awards | 1994 | Best Stunt Ensemble | Gary Hymes Eddie Matthews William Morts Jimmy Ortega Brian Smrz |
Won |
Best Film Editing | John Wright | Nominated | ||
Best Achievement in Sound | David McMillan | Nominated | ||
Best Visual Effects | Boyd Shermis | Nominated | ||
Honorable Mentions | Jan de Bont | Won | ||
Academy Awards | March 27, 1995 | Best Sound Editing | Gregg Landaker Steve Maslow Bob Beemer David MacMillan |
Won |
Best Sound Mixing | Stephen Hunter Flick | Won | ||
Best Film Editing | John Wright | Nominated | ||
American Cinema Editors Awards | 1995 | Best Edited Feature Film | John Wright | Nominated |
BAFTA Awards | 1995 | Best Sound | Stephen Hunter Flick Gregg Landaker Steve Maslow Bob Beemer David MacMillan |
Won |
Best Special Visual Effects | Boyd Shermis John Frazier Ron Brinkman Richard E. Hollander |
Nominated | ||
Best Editing | John Wright | Won | ||
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards | 1995 | Favorite Actress - Action/Adventure | Sandra Bullock | Won |
BMI Film & TV Awards | 1995 | BMI Film Music Award | Mark Mancina | Won |
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards | 1995 | Most Promising Actress | Sandra Bullock | Nominated |
Cinema Audio Society Awards | 1995 | Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Feature Films | Gregg Landaker Steve Maslow Bob Beemer David MacMillan |
Nominated |
Edgar Allan Poe Awards | 1995 | Best Motion Picture | Graham Yost | Nominated |
Golden Camera Awards | 1995 | Golden Screen | N/A | Won |
Japan Academy Prize Awards | 1995 | Best Foreign Film | N/A | Nominated |
Jupiter Awards | 1994 | Best International Actress | Sandra Bullock | Won |
Motion Picture Sound Editors Awards | 1995 | Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects & Foley, Domestic Feature Film | Stephen Hunter Flick Donald Flick David E. Stone Eric Potter Paul Berolzheimer David Bartlett John Dunn Patricio A. Libenson Dean Beville John T. Cucci Ken Dufva Judee Flick Avram D. Gold Warren Hamilton, Jr. Greg Hedgepath Dean Manly Dan O'Connell Catherine Rowe Joan Rowe Kirk Schuler Bruce Stubblefield Solange S. Schwalbe |
Won |
MTV Movie + TV Awards | June 10, 1995 | Best Movie | N/A | Nominated |
Best Male Performance | Keanu Reeves | Nominated | ||
Best Female Performance | Sandra Bullock | Won | ||
Best On-Screen Duo | Keanu Reeves Sandra Bullock |
Won | ||
Best Kiss | Keanu Reeves Sandra Bullock |
Won | ||
Most Desirable Male | Keanu Reeves | Nominated | ||
Most Desirable Female | Sandra Bullock | Won | ||
Best Villain | Dennis Hopper | Won | ||
Best Action Sequence - for the bus escape/airplane explosion | N/A | Won | ||
Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards | May 20, 1995 | Favorite Movie | N/A | Nominated |
Favorite Movie Actor | Keanu Reeves | Nominated | ||
Favorite Movie Actress | Sandra Bullock | Nominated | ||
Nikkan Sports Film Awards | 1995 | Best Foreign Film | N/A | Won |
Saturn Awards | June 26, 1995 | Best Action/Adventure-Thriller Film | N/A | Nominated |
Best Director | Jan de Bont | Nominated | ||
Best Actress | Sandra Bullock | Won |
American Film Institute recognition:
- 100 Years...100 Thrills: #99[1]
- 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains: Jack Traven & Annie Porter - Nominated Heroes
Music[]
Soundtrack[]
A soundtrack album featuring "songs from and inspired by" the film was released on 28 June 1994 with the following tracks The soundtrack was commercially successful in Japan, being certified gold by the RIAJ in 2002.
Score[]
n addition to the soundtrack release, a separate album featuring 40 minutes of Mark Mancina's score from the film was released on 30 August 1994 by 20th Century Fox Film Scores. The CD track order does not follow the chronological order of the film's events.
La-La Land Records and Fox Music released a limited expanded version of Mark Mancina's score on 28 February 2012. The newly remastered release features 69:25 of music spread over 32 tracks (in chronological order). In addition, it includes the song "Speed" by Billy Idol.
Sequel[]
- Main article: Speed 2: Cruise Control
In 1997, a sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control, was released. Sandra Bullock 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 the same character, this time driving a boat that Alex takes control of. The film is considered one of the worst sequels of all time, scoring only 3% (based on 64 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes.
See also[]
- The Doomsday Flight, a 1966 TV-movie in which a bomb will explode if a plane descends to land
- The Bullet Train, a 1975 Japanese film in which a bomb will explode if a train slows down
- MythBusters (2009 season), which tested the reality of the iconic bus jump in the film
- The film is parodied in the UK Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted, in the episode "Speed 3", where Father Dougal drives a booby-trapped milk float that will explode if the speed falls below 4 mph.
External links[]
- Speed on IMDb
- Speed at AllMovie
- Speed at Rotten Tomatoes
- Speed at Box Office Mojo
- Speed at Metacritic
- ↑ AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills. Retrieved on 2013-04-06.