When Chad Stahelski stopped by to chat with The Playlist for an upcoming episode of The Discourse with Mike D’Angelo, it wasn’t entirely about his “John Wick” franchise. But the action series did take up a giant chunk of the conversation, considering it’s Stahelski’s brainchild and what’s put him on the Hollywood map to make his “Highlander” remake and more. But does the future hold for the franchise after Peacock‘s “The Continental” and the upcoming spinoff “Ballerina,” specifically “John Wick 5,” which was originally announced in tandem with “John Wick: Chapter 4“?
Stahelski clarified what was really going on when Lionsgate announced the two films back-to-back. In short, he and star Keanu Reeves were still working on the fourth film’s script but pitched their idea to kill John Wick at the end of the movie. But Lionsgate, sensing an opportunity to milk the franchise, suggested they cut “John Wick: Chapter 4” into two part to build up to the character’s demise.
“Yeah, I woke up to that, too! That was that was a fun read. I don’t think people get it, like sometimes we don’t ,” Stahelski said about waking up to hearing that there were now two “John Wick” films on the way. “The studio is marketing the business and the business makes announcements to keep the irons hot or for other business-type reasons, you know? For whatever festivals or distributor sales or something like that. So, I’ve woken up many a time finding out I’m attached to something like that.”
But Stahelski immediately knew the news stemmed from a misunderstanding between him and the studio. “To be fair, when that announcement initially came out, we were dealing with a very big idea,” he continued. “Keanu and I literally walked into the studio one day after getting back going,’ Yeah, it’s great. We got an idea for “John Wick 4”!’ And they were like, ‘Awesome, let’s hear it!’ And it’s like, ‘He’s gonna die!’ That did not go over well; like, that was not a good pitch, right? So, they’re like, “OK, well maybe let’s do a [part] Four and then you can kill him in Five and really build up to it!’ And that was never really talked about after that, but that was the whole thing of, ‘OK, let’s just do what they do in every franchise: take the last one, chop it in two, put a bunch of fluff in.'”
Stahelski claims the news of two upcoming “John Wick” movies came from the response to his initial pitch, and, “because we still hadn’t cracked the script yet.” “So that came out before we really had a plan,” he said. “And then we’re like, look, we figure we can do this, this, and this. Then the talk started. So, the announcement had already gone out before we had figured out the script.”
But Stahelski finished his script and made “John Wick 4” with Wick dying at the end, albeit with a nearly three-hour runtime. But that’s the script he wanted to helm. “I get it,” said the director, “not knowing was kind of the idea that was sold and remember we were also working on a script that was also pretty thick at the time, and no one, still today, really believes that a goofy action movie like “John Wick” should be three hours long. And to be fair, it was two hours and 38 minutes, the other 11 minutes was credits. People keep giving me shit about making a three-hour movie; it was not three hours.”
And that makes one wonder how long “John Wick 5” will be whenever it gets made. But that question won’t be answered until after Stahelski wraps “Highlander” and he and Reeves hatch out a perfect idea for their character’s return to the big screen.
