10 Big-Budget Movies That Were Doomed From The Start

4. Speed 2: Cruise Control

Speed 2 Cruise Control
20th Century Fox

Jan de Bont's Speed remains one of the greatest action movies ever made, a furiously-paced and constantly gripping genre flick packed with spectacular wall-to-wall action. The sequel is the polar opposite. It sucks. Like really, really sucks.

The entire concept seemed problematic from the start. Keanu Reeves refused to return, so the charisma-free lump of wood that is Jason Patric was drafted in as his replacement. Patric also managed to generate precisely zero chemistry with co-star Sandra Bullock, a glaring flaw given how important the interplay between the leads was in making the first movie a success.

Then there was the curious notion of setting a movie with the word 'speed' in the title on a luxury cruise liner, a mode of transport not exactly known for its breakneck pace. Seemingly to overcompensate for this fact, de Bont thought it wise to spend a quarter of the $110m budget on the set-piece where the ship crashes into the port of Saint Martin.

Immediately labelled as one of the worst sequels ever made, Speed 2 made less than half as much as its predecessor at the box office and scooped eight nominations at the Razzie Awards. While the movie's legacy is far from a positive one, it did at least spawn a classic episode of Father Ted.

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