Andrew W. Marlowe (Air Force One) Air Force One
Andrew W. Marlowe wrote the Air Force One screenplay as a young writer without studio credits, working before the internet existed and unable to get the Presidential Flight Office to answer his questions about the aircraft's layout. The script launched his career and produced one of the most quoted lines in 1990s action cinema — a line he never liked and tried to replace.
Marlowe started with the most compelling character he could imagine
The premise began not with plot but with character. Marlowe reasoned that the highest possible stakes required the highest possible protagonist.
"What more compelling character than the President of the United States?" — Andrew W. Marlowe, Syfy Wire (2021)
The setting came from the same logic — if the character is the president, the location must match his symbolic weight.
"Air Force One, the actual plane, is such an icon of the United States and it represents freedom." — Andrew W. Marlowe, Syfy Wire (2021)
Pre-internet research forced Marlowe to work from freeze frames and phone calls
Marlowe wrote the script before web searches existed. His research process involved freeze-framing television footage of the real Air Force One and cold-calling government offices.
"This was before the internet, before you could do searches. I remember freeze framing on that." — Andrew W. Marlowe, Syfy Wire (2021)
The Presidential Flight Office declined to comment on the aircraft's layout or capabilities. The resulting script invented features that do not exist on the real plane — the escape pod, the parachute deck, the rear cargo ramp — but which became so iconic that a White House aide joked the Air Force would probably want to install them by the end of the week. (cnn)
Marlowe acknowledged Die Hard openly but insisted on distinction
The "Die Hard on a _" formula was the dominant action template of the 1990s, and Marlowe was candid about working within it.
"It was certainly one of the influences. I think that story pattern goes back thousands of years. I was absolutely cognizant of it, but I also wanted this to feel different enough from that movie." — Andrew W. Marlowe, Syfy Wire (2021)
The structural difference Marlowe built was the dual-protagonist design: Marshall fights in the air while Bennett fights on the ground. Die Hard has a single hero in a single location; Air Force One splits the action across two theaters with different rules, giving the formula a political dimension the original lacked.
Marlowe designed the villain to believe he was the hero
The script gives Korshunov a coherent political ideology rather than simple villainy — a deliberate choice that Marlowe articulated as a principle.
"I always like my bad guys to think that they're the good guys in their movie." — Andrew W. Marlowe, Syfy Wire (2021)
Korshunov's Afghan War service, his Moscow Radio career, and his speeches about American interference in the former Soviet states are not backstory decoration. They provide the ideological counterweight to Marshall's Moscow speech — both men believe they are defending their nations from moral corruption, and the film's tension comes from their collision.
The Agent Gibbs backstory was written and then cut
Marlowe wrote an elaborate financial backstory for Secret Service mole Agent Gibbs — a man whose career ambitions exceeded his circumstances and who was vulnerable to financial recruitment.
"A guy whose career never got to where he wanted it to be and he could never afford the things he wanted in life." — Andrew W. Marlowe, SlashFilm (2021)
Petersen cut the backstory, reasoning the film could not stop for exposition during a face-off between the president and the traitor. What survived was a single line from Korshunov — "Mr. President, do you know how I got on this plane? Money" — which Marlowe noted served the villain's thesis that capitalism corrupts loyalty. (slashfilm)
"Get off my plane" survived because nothing better replaced it
Marlowe never felt confident about the film's most famous line and spent the entire writing process trying to improve it.
"I was always concerned that the line was a little cheesy, so I was like, 'Okay, I'm gonna think of something better.' But I never did." — Andrew W. Marlowe, Syfy Wire (2021)
Ford's delivery — flat, exhausted, stripped of irony — is what made the line work. The writing provided the words; the performance provided the context that turned them from cheese into catharsis.
No sequel matched what Marlowe had built
Conversations about an Air Force One sequel continued for years, but Marlowe and the producers never found a story worth making.
"We had conversations with Beacon and all the folks involved, but we never landed on a story that we thought could do justice to what we had accomplished in the main film. We had set the bar incredibly high." — Andrew W. Marlowe, as quoted in Film Stories (2021)
After Air Force One, Marlowe went on to create the television series Castle (2009-2016) and wrote the screenplay for End of Days (1999). Air Force One remains his signature work.