The Die Hard Script That Sank Speed 2—And Bruce Willis’ Surprising Role in the Disaster

In an interview with Movieline, original Die Hard director John McTiernan revealed that after the first film’s runaway success, he had prepared two sequel ideas. One of them was a maritime action thriller featuring John McClane battling terrorists aboard a cruise ship—a logical continuation of the franchise’s “trapped hero in a single location” formula.

But Fox never made that movie.

“I actually prepared two sequels. One didn’t happen because Fox was wrangling with Bruce over money,” McTiernan explained. “After we made Die Hard 3, the studio used most of the material we’d developed for the other sequel and turned it into Speed 2: Cruise Control. The ocean liner going on the beach and stuff? That’s what we’d written for Die Hard.”

The Cruise Ship That Couldn’t

Released in 1997, Speed 2 swapped the white-knuckle intensity of the original’s runaway bus for the far less urgent premise of a slow-moving luxury cruise liner. Sandra Bullock returned as Annie Porter—sans Keanu Reeves—and was paired with Jason Patric as her new boyfriend. Together, they faced off against Willem Dafoe’s hijacker in a plot that somehow involved leeches, computer viruses, and an oil tanker.

The film was mauled by critics, rejected by audiences, and has since become a punchline in Hollywood history. Careers survived—but reputations didn’t.

What Could Have Been for McClane

McTiernan’s original “Die Hard-at-sea” concept—working title Troubleshooter—would have kept Willis’ McClane in the captain’s seat, facing down terrorists in a confined nautical environment. But the plan was scrapped after concerns it felt too close to Steven Seagal’s Under Siege (1992), which had already delivered the “action hero versus bad guys on a ship” formula to big box-office returns.

Instead, the Die Hard franchise pivoted to Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995), pitting McClane against Jeremy Irons’ Simon Gruber in a frantic, citywide bomb chase through New York. The rest of the cruise ship concept, stripped of McClane’s grit, was recycled into Speed 2—with disastrous results.

The Willis Factor

So where does Bruce Willis’ “blame” come in? According to McTiernan, studio negotiations with Willis over money were a major reason the cruise ship Die Hard never happened in the first place. Without him locked in, Fox shelved the project for the franchise—but still held onto the set pieces. By the time they resurfaced, McClane was gone, Reeves was out, and audiences were left with a film that made “Die Hard on a boat” look like a very bad idea indeed.

Verdict: Watch? Absolutely Not.

Speed 2: Cruise Control remains every bit as bad as its reputation suggests—slow, lifeless, and utterly lacking the tension that made Speed a classic. But knowing it was once envisioned as a high-octane Die Hard sequel? That’s a Hollywood “what if” worth raising an eyebrow over.

Just… don’t watch it to find out. Trust the critics on this one.