‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ Director Chad Stahelski On Potential For More Films And How Each Film In The Series Is ‘A Love Letter’ – Contenders Film LA

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains plot details of John Wick: Chapter 4.

At the end of John Wick: Chapter 4, director and producer Chad Stahelski and producer Erica Lee appeared to end the franchise when John Wick (Keanu Reeves) took a bullet to the stomach during a duel and seemingly succumbed to his injuries. However, is there a way to bring the hero of this franchise back to life, as was the case with action heroes from films like Netflix? withdrawal?

“You never know,” Stahelski teased at Deadline’s Contenders Film Los Angeles event on Saturday. “Keanu is hard to kill.”

“Never say never,” Lee added in a conversation moderated by Justin Kroll and also featuring senior audio editor Mark Stoeckinger.

But in all seriousness, Stahelski said the couple is “very proud” of how they “ended” the film and the franchise and “feel good” about where they left it. “But look, I enjoy working with Keanu. We love the character, she is cool,” said the filmmaker. “Honestly, if any of us woke up tomorrow and had a really good idea or idea, we’d be there. It’s just that you don’t want to force it. We are doing pretty well now and we don’t want to screw it up.”

The highest-grossing film in the franchise after its release in March, grossing more than $440 million worldwide. Chapter 4 Watch as the titular ex-assassin finds a way to defeat crime council The High Table. But before he can gain his freedom, Wick must face a new enemy with powerful alliances around the world and forces turning old friends into enemies.

While Stahelski was initially content to end the franchise with the third The idea for a fourth came to him after a conversation with Reeves at a Japanese whiskey bar, where they settled on a version of it. John Wick in samurai movie style.

That day the screenwriting process began, and in this part of the series the hope was to achieve a different feel than ever before, with a strong emphasis on an international story that would stop in Paris at Stahelski’s request.

When discussing the process of making action scenes, Stahelski said the team knew early on that they wanted to incorporate “this Sisyphus metaphor of the stairs” into the visual story, as well as a car chase shot in the shot. “We always wanted to try something first class. We knew we wanted to do something with vehicles,” he said. “We knew we wanted to incorporate different martial arts.”

Many of these series started out as nods to films that mainstream creatives love. “If you look at one John Wick, we don’t see it as a film. It’s a love letter,” Stahelski explained. “You can see it that way.” Lawrence of Arabia there is a reference to Jackie Chan in it. You can see Enter the dragonWalter Hills The fighter. They are all films that we made [love] of Bullitt Unpleasant Apparent from Wong Kar-wai to Zhang Yimou and Kurosawa.’

Even though Lionsgate’s John Wick film series is coming to an end, the franchise itself will live on. While Peacock recently unveiled a spin-off miniseries The Continentalsfemale-led film spin-off ballerina starring Ana de Armas and hits theaters June 7.

Come back on Monday for the panel video.

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