It will be 19 years on June 10 of this year since the release of Speed starring Keanu Reeves. The film is a familiar milestone in his career. Considering the film went through the stratosphere, it seems fair to ask what made it so popular and why even now it retains it’s appeal.
Liz Shannon Miller took a look at those questions in a piece for A Bright Wall in a Dark Room. She takes us on a brief tour of the players and starts with the bus itself. From there she moves on to the various actors that produce that “Hey it’s that guy” moment and mentions Robert Mailhouse, Glenn Plummer, Beth Grant and ends with Keanu.
She readily points out, that it is Joss Whedon who is truly the unsung hero of the piece. Turns out Whedon was responsible for 98.9 percent of the dialogue according to the Graham Yost who was the only writer that was included in the credits. As she bluntly puts it:
Whedon got screwed (as much as a for-hire script doctor, knowing full well that this is what happens all the time, can be screwed) but his work on the film is now relatively common knowledge — and considered to be the best part of the film (bus jumping over freeway gap notwithstanding).
Beth Grant who played Helen, had said in an interview that it was Whedon’s draft that was responsible for both the memorable dialogue and the stripping down of character.
Miller finishes by asking:
Was it a hit because the characters were reduced to quick quips? Because “Die Hard on a bus” was an easy sell for audiences? Or was it a hit because of Keanu?
The article, which is here, answers the final questions and sums up nicely what we already know.