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The Unexpected Truth About The Bus From Speed
By NOR'ADILA HEPBURN
In the adrenaline-pumping thriller, “Speed,” a villain has strapped the bottom of a metro bus with explosives that will detonate if the speed falls below 50 miles per hour. At the wheel is Sandra Bullock’s unlikely heroine who maneuvers the bus through the streets of Los Angeles, while Keanu Reeves’ LAPD cop tries his best to get her and the other passengers out of harm’s way.
The 1994 action movie was a box-office smash, earning more than $300 million worldwide, and turned Bullock and Reeves, then up-and-coming actors, into superstars. Of course, the bus — or more accurately, buses, as ten were used to make the film — played a starring role and deserved as much acclaim as the actors.
The biggest stunt in “Speed” was the death-defying scene where the bus appears to leap over an unfinished freeway, but fortunately for the actors on board, no bus performed the jump in real life. Instead, producers hired a stuntman to make the jump off an 8-foot ramp on set, and used computer technology to create the illusion that the bus spent 11 seconds in the air.