Speed 2: Cruise Control
Speed 2: Cruise Control is a 1997 American action thriller film produced and directed by Jan de Bont from a screenplay by Randall McCormick and Jeff Nathanson. It is the sequel to Speed and stars Sandra Bullock, Jason Patric and Willem Dafoe. Its plot follows Annie Porter and Alex Shaw, a couple who go on vacation to the Caribbean aboard a luxury cruise ship, which is hijacked by John Geiger, a terrorist. While trapped aboard the ship, Annie and Alex work with the ship's first officer to try to stop it after they discover it is programmed to crash into an oil tanker.
De Bont had the idea for the film after having a recurring nightmare about a cruise ship crashing into an island. Speed star Keanu Reeves was initially supposed to reprise his role as Jack Traven for the sequel, but decided not to commit and was replaced by Patric before filming. The writers had to rework the script to accommodate the addition of a new character. Production took place aboard Seabourn Legend, the ship on which the film is set. The final scene, in which the ship crashes into the island of Saint Martin, cost almost a quarter of the budget, and set records as the largest and most expensive stunt ever filmed. Many interior scenes aboard the ship were shot on soundstages in the Greater Los Angeles Area. The soundtrack featured mostly reggae music. Mark Mancina returned to compose the film score, released as an album 13 years after the film's release.
Released by 20th Century Fox on June 13, 1997, the film received largely negative reviews from critics, who criticized the story, characters, absence of Reeves, and its setting on a slow-moving cruise ship. Critic Roger Ebert defended the film, calling it a "truly rousing ocean liner adventure story". The film was also a box-office bomb, earning $164.5 million worldwide against a production budget as high as $160 million. It was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards, winning the Worst Remake or Sequel category.
Plot
cop Alex Shaw is on a motorcycle chasing a vehicle with stolen goods. After he catches the driver of the vehicle, his girlfriend Annie Porter encounters him during her driving test. She discovers that Alex is on the SWAT team and concludes that he mistakenly told her that he was on beach patrol. As an apology, Alex surprises her with a Caribbean cruise on Seabourn Legend.Aboard the ship, deranged passenger John Geiger, a former employee of the cruise company, hacks into the ship's computer system, sabotages the communication systems, and kills Captain Pollard. After blowing up two of the ship's engines, Geiger calls the bridge to notify the first officer, Juliano, of Pollard's death and order him to evacuate the ship. While passengers evacuate, Drew, a young girl who is deaf, becomes trapped in an elevator, and a group of people also become trapped behind locked fire doors in a hallway filling with smoke. As Annie and Alex attempt to board the last lifeboat, Geiger programs the ship to continue sailing. When the winch lowering the lifeboat jams, Alex jumps back onboard to rescue the passengers from falling overboard, while Annie and Juliano utilize the ship's gangplank to get them back on deck.
Realizing that Geiger has hijacked the ship, Alex accompanies Juliano to the cabin, but Geiger remotely detonates explosives inside the room. Annie and Dante, the ship's photographer, notice the people trapped behind the fire doors, utilizing a chainsaw to cut the door open and facilitate their escape. Meanwhile, Alex orders the navigator, Merced, to flood the ship's decks and decelerate it by opening the ballast doors. As the ship floods, Alex notices Drew on a monitor after she climbs out of the elevator and enters the ballast room to rescue her. Noticing Geiger fleeing from the vault, Alex ambushes him, but Geiger escapes by shutting the fire door in front of him. Using the ship's intercom, Geiger explains that he designed the ship's autopilot system and is pursuing his revenge plot against the cruise line after being dismissed when he contracted copper poisoning. He escapes from Alex by attaching a grenade to a door.
As the crew notices that Geiger has programmed the ship to crash into an oil tanker off the coast of Saint Martin, Alex decides to prevent the crash by diving underneath the ship and jamming the propeller with a steel cable. Geiger jams the cable winch while Alex is underwater, causing it to break off the ship and free the cable. He then abducts Annie and absconds with her on a lifeboat.
To avert a collision, Alex and Dante venture into the ship's bilge pump room and maneuver the bow thrusters, steering it away from the oil tanker. The ship screeches down the side of the tanker and heads into a marina before crashing into a Saint Martin town and grinding to a halt. Alex hijacks a speed boat to pursue Annie, whom Geiger has dragged onto a seaplane; he employs a harpoon gun to tether himself to the plane from the boat and reels himself in through the water. Eventually, he climbs onto the plane and retrieves Annie, and both escape on one of the plane's floats, which lands on the ocean surface. Geiger attempts to escape over the oil tanker but loses control of the plane, which becomes impaled on the tanker's foremast; in the ensuing explosion, both vehicles are destroyed and Geiger perishes. The members of the tanker crew, however, launched their lifeboat just prior to the destruction. As the couple return to shore in the speed boat, Alex gives Annie an engagement ring, proposing marriage, and she happily accepts.
Cast
Production
Background
Speed was released in June 1994, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. The film's plot features the story of a runaway bus armed with a bomb that will explode if its speed drops below. It was a critical and commercial success, and was the 8th-highest-grossing-film worldwide in 1994.Due to positive word of mouth, studio 20th Century Fox began discussing plans for a Speed sequel a month prior to its release, and officially announced a sequel would be produced following the film's box office success after its first week in theaters. Although he felt the film was a "one-time story" with no sequel potential, Speed director Jan de Bont was contractually obligated to direct a sequel, and would be paid a reported $5–6 million salary. Reeves and Bullock had no contractual obligation to star in the sequel; however, by late 1994, Fox executive Tom Sherak had begun negotiations with the actors and hoped to produce a follow-up film with their two characters as a married couple.
Writing
Hundreds of ideas for a sequel were submitted to De Bont, all of which he turned down in favor of his own idea, based on a recurring nightmare he experienced about a cruise ship crashing into an island. Randall McCormick was hired to write the sequel in 1994 and received a story writing credit along with De Bont. The screenplay was credited to McCormick and Jeff Nathanson, who began writing the film with its ending based on De Bont's nightmare.Director John McTiernan of the Die Hard series claimed in 2001 that "the studio used most of the material we'd developed" for a potential Die Hard sequel and turned it into Speed 2, including "the ocean liner going on the beach." The third film in the series, Die Hard with a Vengeance, was originally based on a spec script from 1990 titled Troubleshooter, whose premise involved fighting terrorists aboard a cruise ship. This concept for a sequel was later abandoned by the filmmakers due to its similarities to the film Under Siege.
Speed writer Graham Yost and producer Mark Gordon claimed that neither of them were asked to participate in the sequel, although both of their names are listed in the film credits; Yost was given a writing credit for the film's characters and Gordon was credited as executive producer. In an interview in 2010, Yost stated he had two ideas for a sequel: a Vietnam War-era military ship set to explode if its ammunition comes in contact with water, and an aircraft forced to fly at a low altitude over the Andes Mountains.
Casting
Bullock initially declined to star in the sequel, but later agreed in order to secure financial backing for the drama film Hope Floats ; she was paid a reported $11–$13 million to reprise her role as Annie. Reeves was offered $12 million to reprise his role as Jack Traven, but turned it down because he did not like the script, was financially secure from the success of Speed, and felt he was not "ready to mentally and physically" star in another action film after having completed Chain Reaction. He passed on Speed 2 in order to star in the film The Devil's Advocate, which was filmed at the same time, then subsequently toured with his band, Dogstar. Reeves said that Fox was "furious" with his decision and released "propaganda" against him, falsely claiming that he turned down the role to tour with his band. De Bont said that the character in the sequel was not specific to Reeves and could be played by any young actor, as long as he had chemistry with Bullock.Many actors were considered to replace Reeves including: Simon Baker, Jon Bon Jovi, Julian McMahon, Patrick Muldoon, Johnathon Schaech, Christian Slater, William Zabka and Billy Zane. Bullock initially suggested Matthew McConaughey, who passed on the role, prompting her to suggest Jason Patric, with whom she had wanted to work since seeing his performance in After Dark, My Sweet. De Bont was skeptical of featuring a relatively unknown actor such as Patric, but was reminded by the studio that Bullock and Reeves were also relatively unknown prior to Speed, and chose Patric based on his role in Sleepers. Patric was paid a reported $4.5–$8 million for his role in Speed 2 and used his salary to finance a 1998 drama, Your Friends & Neighbors. After accepting the role, Patric stated that he never saw Speed or had any intentions of seeing it; Reeves said he was looking forward to seeing Patric star in the sequel. After Reeves declined to appear in Speed 2, the screenplay was rewritten to remove his character from the story, which De Bont wanted to deal with early in the film. His absence is explained in the first scene, where Annie talks about how her relationship with Jack did not work out, and mentions her current relationship with Alex, before his character is introduced in the film.
Gary Oldman turned down the role of the villain, Geiger, to star as another villain in Air Force One. Willem Dafoe was cast as Geiger after he wanted to star in a "big movie" and once again play a villain. De Bont cast New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison as Juliano based on his role in Once Were Warriors. Although he did not like the script, Brian McCardie accepted the role as Merced as his agents assured him it would be good for his career.
Comedian Royale Watkins was hired by De Bont for the part of Dante after discovering Watkins performing at a comedy club. Glenn Plummer was cast as a character named Maurice whose boat is hijacked by Alex, reprising his role from Speed as a Jaguar owner whose car is hijacked by Jack. To add comic relief, De Bont cast comedian Tim Conway as Annie's driving instructor, and hoped it would be a comeback role for him. Singer Tamia was cast as Sheri, an entertainer on the ship, because De Bont wanted a singer who could also act. She did not plan on doing any film acting that early in her career, as she had yet to release her debut album, but said the part was "too perfect for to resist." Joe Morton reprised his role from Speed as SWAT lieutenant Herb "Mac" McMahon in an uncredited cameo appearance in the beginning of the film.