Before charming theater owners from the Colosseum stage to close out CinemaCon last month, Keanu Reeves and Chad Stahelski walked the red carpet inside Caesars Palace and told The Hollywood Reporter that they had a simple goal for John Wick: Chapter 4.
“We keep finding new and interesting ways to have John Wick suffer,” filmmaker and longtime stunt expert Stahelski explained of the Lionsgate franchise that has snagged $579 million at the worldwide box office, propelled by Reeves doing much of his own stunt work and fight choreography alongside Stahelski (whom he met on the Matrix franchise). “That’s where the action comes from. Figure out how to make him suffer, and then design backward.”
Naturally, some of those ideas come from Reeves. “I’ve called out a couple of things, like, ‘Let’s get on a horse in the desert.’ ‘Let’s drive a little bit.’”
He was spotted doing such activities when the footage debuted during CinemaCon, introduced by the pair during their time onstage. “You ready, John?” asks Laurence Fishburne’s character to kick off the trailer that promises “a new day is dawning, new ideas, new rules, new management.” Then Wick says, “I’m going to kill them all.” Cut to epic fight sequences (including one water-soaked scene), Wick riding a horse in the desert, car chases and Wick smashing a foe’s head with nunchucks. “I want you to find peace, John,” a character says in voiceover. Another: “The only path this leads to is death.”
Neither admitted to inserting nunchucks as a weapon of choice for Chapter 4 and they were equally tight-lipped about whether this one, set for release March 24, 2023, will be their last. “We just attack one at a time,” Reeves said.
Stahelski added: “We do it chapter by chapter. Just like an author; write the chapter, scratch head, write next chapter.”