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It is my intention to do right by Speed 2: Cruise Control in this week’s Chapter Two. I watched it for only the second time this past weekend (the first time being opening weekend in June 1997), and I did watch it on the heels of Speed. I wasn’t surprised to see that my negative impression of the film held up, and that it suffers greatly in comparison to Speed by virtually every metric, particularly when viewing both in such close time proximity. But for once, I am going to resist the easy route I could take in penning this column - highlighting Speed’s exemplary nature simply to provide stark relief for the ways in which Speed 2 throws itself under the bus (ouch) - and catalog my issues with Speed 2 in and of themselves, as if the film was not a sequel. It’s a challenge, but then so is making a film in the middle of a vast body of water.

I will start off, however, with a brief background of both films, anchored by a comparison and contrast of the budgets, grosses, and reception for the Speeds to suggest the vast distance between what was at stake in 1994 and what was at stake in 1997.

Speed arrived in theaters with a $30 million budget, marking the directorial debut of Jan De Bont, a cinematographer of some 50 films over 25 years. The first half of his career was spent primarily in The Netherlands, where he DP’d a good number of Paul Verhoeven’s early films. Between 1981 and 1992, he worked on Hollywood productions of all shapes, sizes, and merits, from Cujo to The Jewel of the Nile, Leonard Part 6 to Die Hard, and The Hunt for Red October to Basic Instinct. Since Speed 2, he has directed only two other films.

Screenwriter Graham Yost was also making a debut of sorts, marking his first theatrically produced screenplay, having written for television before (Herman’s Head, The Powers That Be) and mostly since (From The Earth to the Moon, Boomtown). There was nothing to inherently suggest an action film of any merit, particularly one that would be rapturously reviewed, and that would catch on with audiences and hang around for most of the summer. But after debuting at #1 with about $14 million, Speed would go on to gross nearly 9 times that, finishing out with $121 million in North America and an impressive $350 million globally.

Arriving almost three years to the day after the first film, Speed 2 had seen De Bont’s stock soar astronomically in the interim (thanks to a minor hit called Twister). For the sequel, he was director, producer and co-writer of the story (unlike Kevin Costner in that same year’s The Postman, he did not co-write and/or sing any of Speed 2’s closing credits songs). Randall McCormick and Jeff Nathanson are individually credited for the screenplay and while Nathanson moved on to Rush Hour, Men in Black, and Indiana Jones sequels, McCormick has direct-to-video sequels to The Scorpion King and Blue Crush to his credit.

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