“Do it!”: The forgotten Keanu Reeves movie that went head-to-head with the one he refused to make
I love arthouse cinema as much as the next culture journalist, but when all the pretence is stripped away, and I’m nothing but bare bones and a few guilty pleasures, I can’t hide my undying love for a trashy 1990s action movie, with Keanu Reeves as the lead.
With a bag of crisps in one hand and a crate of beer under the other, I’ve often giddily watched the lengthy opening credits of Speed, where the fabled elevator shaft continues to plummet to the tune of a glossy Hollywood soundtrack.
The genuinely shocking graphics perfectly precede a film that showcases the very best of the eras of corny taglines (“pop quiz hotshot!”) and lofty storylines (a commercial bus genuinely flying across a 50ft gap in the overpass). It’s charming in its ridiculousness, and for that reason, stands as the very best of Reeves’ 1990s action catalogue.
The storyline model was relatively simple, too. Take a mode of transport, a bomb and a speed limit, and you’ve got yourself an ever-moving story that can travel across the globe. The studio executives quickly understood that, and so wasted no time in commissioning the follow-up, Speed 2, where this time a cruise ship was facing a race against time to prevent a fatal explosion from going off at the hands of a crazed maniac.
But the most noticeable difference was Reeves’ absence. His onscreen romance, Sandra Bullock was now paired with some random guy named Alex Shaw, a brooding knock-off of Reeves’ original character, hoping to fill the heroic void he left.
Ultimately, this new hero was introduced because Reeves pulled out. He explained, I really had an amazing time filming and making Speed. It did pretty well, so there was a, ‘Let’s do it again’. Then I was doing a film at the time called Chain Reaction, and I was in Chicago, and I read the script. That film was pretty physical. It was a lot of running and cold,” adding, “They showed me the script, and I just didn’t see it. I didn’t get it. So, I couldn’t do it.”
Come 1997, the year of the film’s release, Reeves was hot Hollywood property and so jumped ship (sorry) for a seemingly better career option in The Last Time I Committed Suicide. While the movie ultimately flopped, Reeves saw it as a chance to step away from glossy action blockbusters and into more heartfelt acting.
But then, in another twist of fate, the movie was then set to be scheduled on the exact same release date as Speed 2, a challenge that Reeves and the team relished with director Stephen Kay telling the studios, “Do it! We’ll just run an ad campaign that says, ‘The movie that Keanu Reeves did instead of ‘Speed 2!'”
Eventually, they got scared off and moved the release date to accommodate the franchise Reeves once carried on his back. To his delight, Speed 2 inevitably flopped, and the series came to a grinding halt, which was a poetic premonition given the film’s storylines.
