Keanu Reeves Says He Was Put in 'Movie Jail' by Fox for 10 Years After Turning Down Speed 2

Keanu Reeves was game for two John Wick sequels, but there’s one franchise he wasn’t so keen on continuing: Speed.

The actor told GQ in a recent interview that his decision to bow out of the 1994 thriller’s sequel prompted the movie’s studio, Fox, to place him in “movie jail” for 10 years.

“I didn’t work with [Fox] again until [2008’s] The Day the Earth Stood Still,” Reeves said.

At the time of the Speed sequel, Reeves left Hollywood altogether, opting instead to tackle the title role in a regional production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Winnipeg, Canada.

Speed, starring Reeves as an LAPD cop attempting to save the lives of passengers on a bomb-outfitted bus that risks explosion should it drop below 50 miles per hours, was a box office hit, pulling in more than $121 million at the box office and earning a 93 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Its success prompted discussion of a sequel, and while Fox senior executive vice president Tom Sherak told Entertainment Weekly in 1994 that the studio was negotiating with Reeves to return, that didn’t pan out.

Instead, Fox cast Jason Patric opposite Sandra Bullock, who reprised her role as Annie, in 1997’s Speed 2: Cruise Control.

Despite the studio’s faith in the film — “There’s lots of movies here we lose a lot of sleep over, and this isn’t one of them,” Fox production president Tom Rothman told the Los Angeles Times in 1997 — Speed 2 earned just $48.6 million at the box office and a 4 percent fresh rating.

Reeves later told Jimmy Kimmel in 2015 that he chose not to participate because he didn’t like the script.

“I didn’t get to be in that. Well, I decided not to be in that,” he said. “I loved working with [director] Jan de Bont and Sandra, of course. It was just a situation in life where I got the script and I read the script and I was like, ‘Ugh.’ It was about a cruise ship and I was thinking, ‘A bus, a cruise ship… Speed, bus, but then a cruise ship is even slower than a bus and I was like, ‘I love you guys, but I just can’t do it.’”

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum hits theaters May 17.

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