John Wick. It’s a name that strikes fear into the hearts of fictional assassins and joy into the hearts of action cinema fans. He’s known as the mythic boogeyman Baba Yaga by those on his hit list, while those lucky enough to be in his good books simply call him Mr. Wick. Over the past decade, he’s gained a reputation as a dog avenger, a High Table-toppler, and an urban legend who once killed three guys in a bar using only a pencil (“a fucking pencil!”).
Offscreen, Wick’s legend is just as lofty. Directed by Chad Stahelski, 2014’s “John Wick” has spawned three direct sequels, each more critically praised than the last. While last year’s “John Wick: Chapter 4” seemingly hit pause on star Keanu Reeves’ time as this slick-suited antihero, the franchise refuses to die. TV prequel “The Continental: From The World of John Wick” arrived earlier this year, with big-screen spinoff “Ballerina,” starring Ana de Armas, set for June 2025, each part of an ever-growing Wick-iverse.
By all accounts, it’s been a whirlwind decade. However, according to all those responsible for creating John Wick and his dark underworld, this infamous afterlife was far from guaranteed.
Having doubled Reeves on “The Matrix” trilogy, stunt performer Stahelski and fellow fall guy David Leitch saw the perfect directorial debut vehicle in an unassuming revenge story by screenwriter Derek Kolstad. Working with the original title “Scorn,” the pair whittled it down with Reeves before pouring themselves into a tight, intense and daring production. However, by the time filming wrapped, Stahelski and Leitch were convinced they’d never work again.
While Stahelski took sole directing credit and would ultimately drive the franchise forward with Reeves, all three were instrumental in crafting one of modern cinema’s most enduring figures. From the mythic lore of his heightened assassin universe to devising the rapidfire martial-arts-and-weaponry mash-up gun-fu style that would change Hollywood’s approach to action, Stahelski and Leitch’s original “John Wick” altered the lives of all who made it.
To celebrate its 10th birthday, IndieWire spoke to Reeves, his directing duo Stahelski and Leitch, and producer Basil Iwanyk to relive the highs, lows, struggles and triumphs of bringing “John Wick” to audiences.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity and length.
After reading Kolstad’s script, Reeves sent it to his ‘The Matrix’ collaborators Stahelski and Leitch, asking them to consider choreographing its action scenes. Little did he know, they were interested in directing instead…
Chad Stahelski: I read it the night before I shared it with David. There had been three or four versions of the script, and the one I had, Keanu had sent me. It was really short and had this weird tone. I went back and read the other drafts and in retrospect, I probably would’ve said a hard no to them. This one had a quirk to it; John Wick read the closest to how Keanu ultimately played the character, and it was the closest to the irreverence of a ’70s action film. It had a little swagger to it.
Keanu Reeves: What grabbed my attention was the premise. I thought this world-behind-the-world and a character who we think is one character but is actually another kind of character [was great]. I loved that it was about grief. To me, it was all about grief, love, and friendship but then also the dark side. There was John and John Wick — the two sides of the character — and I really enjoyed that interplay in the story.
Basil Iwanyk: The character was stoic, minimalistic, noble, formal, austere in his actions and movements… and while he won’t admit it, the idea of “everyone is asking if I’m back… Well, I’m thinking I’m back” — Keanu was ready to remind everyone why he’s a fucking great movie star.
David Leitch: We loved its simplicity and the fact that we could add our own world. It gave us the ability to do the type of action we had been R&D-ing for a couple of years and had offered up to other filmmakers as choreographers, and they were like, “Gun-fu? We don’t see it…” For us to have a script that lent itself to that? It was like, “Oh my God.” We could apply this provocative action that we had been itching to do to this script.
Stahelski: It had just enough structure to be really interesting. We were like, ‘All the ideas we have would fit this so nicely.’ The hotel, the underworld… it just fit.
Leitch: Immediately when we read it, we saw something a little bit more mystic about this character. Less “Gran Torino” and more “John Wick” as you know it today. That script could’ve gone either way, and when you look at where Chad has taken the franchise — really building out the mythic lore that people love and have responded to — he’s continued to take that to the ’nth level.
Stahelski: I’m a big Tolkien fan, and I’d always wanted to do a modern-day fantasy that scratched that itch so when this came along, it was the perfect hanger to put our coat on. I’d been trying to sell this idea of Greek mythology and underworlds but Tolkien was probably my favourite growing up [and a big influence]. I was fascinated by world creation. Add 10 years working with the Wachowskis, and I didn’t want to do a regular old action or assassin movie. I wanted something where we could have a little element of fantasy.
Iwanyk: [Building the world was] beyond fun. We had no underlying material to adhere to. The crazier, more off-beat, the better. We also loved the mix of the old and the new… sometimes in the Wick movies, you feel like you’re in the 1930s while other times it’s as modern as it gets. The fact that it didn’t have a rhyme or reason for it made it feel fun.
Leitch: Keanu was a fan of that stuff, too. We always said we needed to build a slightly heightened reality to get away with the type of action that we wanted to create. I don’t think John Wick’s style of killing 100 henchmen throughout the film works in a grounded reality. Fighting at point-blank range, using jujitsu and guns… you needed to create a graphic novel world. Having mentored under the Wachowskis who were the masters of that with “The Matrix,” it just felt right.
Reeves: I thought it was great [that Stahelski and Leitch wanted to direct]. I was hoping they’d do it so I talked to the film’s producer Basil Iwanyk.
Iwanyk: Initially, [Chad and Dave] were going to come on to create the action as second-unit directors. They asked me if they could pitch as first-unit directors just so they could have practice as they were just starting out. I agreed, not expecting to be blown away as I was. It’s still one of the best director presentations that I’ve experienced.
Once on board, Reeves, Stahelski, and Leitch further refined Wick’s world — taking cues from anime for his black-suited style and neon-noir surroundings.
Reeves: The character was originally written much older. That obviously had to change. We worked on [the script] scene by scene, not punching up but putting our own creative hands on the clay of the story. The production design and costume design all had to be realised but in terms of the script, it was mainly [tweaks to] dialogue and the events that happen ahead of the action sequences.
Leitch: There’s a stoicism to John Wick that we wanted. I think Keanu wanted to create a character like the classic Lee Marvin or Clint Eastwood antiheroes. Those two actors say very little and are defined through purposeful action. You could turn the sound off of “John Wick” and still understand the film — and I’m proud of that.
Stahelski: We knew we wanted to make it look slightly different. The powers that be wanted to change his look. We wanted messy hair, not clean cut, a scraggly beard…
Leitch: “Beard-gate,” we called it. The studio convention was that heroes are clean-shaven and international buyers don’t like beards — but we were like, “Well, he’s an antihero. He’s a hero but he’s also a very, very flawed guy.”
Reeves: I had gone through that with “47 Ronin” and a couple of other films. The length of the beard, how much beard, no beard… it’s definitely a contentious point.
Iwanyk: There was a tremendous amount of discussion but very little disagreement. The overarching idea was always, “Will this look cool and/or crazy?” We weren’t afraid to drift into kooky or even campy at times.
Leitch: Ultimately, because the budget was so low and people had no expectations for this movie, we won that battle. They were like, “Fine! Let these stunt idiots do what they want to do.”
Stahelski: I’m a big fan of anime and manga, and in anime, you’ve got the crazy Japanese hair. Keanu just fit that. I’ve seen him in real life being Keanu the rockstar, and we wanted that look. We pictured the rockstar hair, scruffy beard, and three-piece suit, so he had this juxtaposition of character. When we did test shots, we thought, “That’s our anime character.”
Reeves: To me, there’s John and John Wick. He’s very sad in the opening and doesn’t look like a guy who could be an assassin, but how does he clean up, and what does that John Wick character [look like]? I worked with [costume designer] Luca Mosca and Chad and Dave on the suit and how he is as an everyman. Then, working with the cinematographer is where you see a lot of that anime influence in the lighting choices. The Red Circle [scene], the blues in the opening and the pop in color that happens as he becomes John Wick in the action sequences.
Leitch: There was a moment where we thought maybe if we grounded this a little bit more, he’d wear tactical gear, but we thought, “No, this is a modern-day fable. It’s mythic.” He wears a suit, and if we want the illusion that there’s a bulletproof vest underneath, great. It leans into that graphic novel sensibility. Even when the bad guys were storming Wick’s house, we had them all dressed in tactical gear at one point. Chad and I looked at them and thought, “This doesn’t feel like the world.” We put them in suits and thought, “Now, we’re starting to understand the world.”
With their Wick-iverse taking shape, the trio were almost ready to go — but first, they had to create a gut-punch scene worthy of pulling retired hitman John Wick back into action.
Reeves: Once you’re making that movie, that’s the movie you’re making, so in that particular case, you can’t not kill the dog.
Stahelski: We tried to sell the movie to studios before we started shooting and were turned down by literally everybody. Financing had a huge problem with Keanu with a beard, they had a huge problem killing Alfie Allen [who played Iosef Tarasov], and they had a huge problem with killing the puppy — but, push comes to shove, we either brought them around or we flat out lied and got it done.
Iwanyk: Everyone — and I mean everyone — was warning me that killing a dog could turn off half the audience. Truly, I never had any doubts. I thought it was genius in a way, especially with Keanu performing it. It was in the DNA of the movie.
Leitch: We had to go with our instincts. Our conversations with Lionsgate at the time were like, “You can’t kill a dog. It’s bad luck. Any film that kills a dog is not going to be successful.” Our theory was we’re about to go on a revenge spree like no other, and if it’s not justified by some horrific act, we’re not going to get away with it, and people aren’t going to revel in it.
Reeves: We didn’t know how audiences would react. You don’t see the dog get killed. You hear it and see a stomp. It’s really the aftermath. The trail of blood, seeing John with it in his arms… There’s love there.
Stahelski: Everybody thought this was either the most genius idea ever or the worst idea ever, and [that] we were never going to work again. You’ve got to remember how it looked behind the scenes: People didn’t realize we were going to film it with a baby lens and have one of our cast members in combat boots stomping on a puppy with a blood trail leading to Keanu Reeves with a fat lip, greasy hair, in his pajamas, bawling his eyes out… It probably wasn’t the most action-movie shot. I imagine people behind the monitors watching Dave and I directing probably thought we were out of our minds and this was never going to get seen.
Reeves: That was the point of it. It was the chance we were taking, and I think they handled it very tastefully and dramatically and [garnered] the responses that we would all want. Like, “Oh, they killed his dog? And it’s the dog from his wife as a gift because she doesn’t want him to be alone because she knows about his shadow self? You can fucking do anything.”
Leitch: Even though it’s a heightened world, we felt strongly that it needed an inciting incident that was graphic and shocking [to make you feel like], “Fuck these guys. Fuck. Them.” We knew we had the choice to cut it out or reveal the dog at the end of the movie in a shelter or whatever — but we trusted our instincts.
Stahelski: I think we snuck in under the wire because we were so low-budget and low-key.
Working with cinematographer Jonathan Sella, the trio infused their anime-influenced style with gun-fu, an approach mixing close-quarter martial arts with firearms. Taking cues from choreographed dance, it was a grueling, time-constricted shoot — but not even a vicious head cold stopped Reeves from delivering the goods.
Stahelski: [Keanu] was sick as a dog [during the Red Circle Club scene]. He was horribly ill for those two weeks. We had to send him home twice because his fever spiked over 103. For the first two days, he didn’t tell us he was sick. By the time we saw him sweating profusely and not catching his breath, he said, “Oh, I got the flu, but it’s cool.” He talked to the stunt guys and was like, “Is everybody cool? I don’t want to get anybody sick.” They were like, “Fuck it. Let’s do it.” We had no money, no insurance days to shut down, and the location was kicking us out in a day, so he had a couple of power drinks, a cigarette, rehearsed, and we shot it. He powered through.
Iwanyk: We would yell, “Cut,” and he would walk over to a garbage can and puke. He would be shivering between takes. God forbid if anyone suggested he was too sick to carry on. The dude is really, really, really tough.
Leitch: I don’t know how he manages it when we’re putting him through those action scenes. As Chad has built the franchise, they’ve got exponentially bigger, crazier, and physically demanding, so flu or no flu, there’s no one like Keanu in terms of laying it all on the line physically. It’s amazing to watch. He was so sick, but it’s a small independent movie, and we all had literal skin in the game. He was like, “I’m here. I’m going to do this.”
Reeves: Love [was the key to surviving that scene]. I just loved being there. I wanted to realize the dream and execute what we were doing and do whatever I could do to be there and to do it. It got much harder [as the franchise continued] — which is part of the pleasure. I like it when it’s not easy.
Stahelski: [Cinematographer] Jonathan Sella really wrangled us in to create a look. At the time, everybody was coming out of “Taken” and the “Bourne” movies where it was present-day dystopia and everything had a blue hue. We were like, “That’s not our vibe.” We wanted intensity and neon noir. We wanted Wong Kar Wai. I wanted color used in an adult, artistic way.
Reeves: Dave and Chad wanted the action to play a part in what the film would look like and how it would be shot. Longer takes, trying to have the actors do as much as they could. We were familiar with that because of what we’d all gone through together on the “Matrix” films in terms of training.
Leitch: We told Jonathan we were trying to create a sexy underworld, and we had one rule: cool overrides everything. How do we make this world wish fulfilment, music video sexy? He was like, “OK I got it.” We really leaned into that aesthetic.
Reeves: They had a wonderful eye and a wonderful cinematographer. The compositions are beautiful.
Iwanyk: [On the online rumor that Keanu coined the movie title by constantly referring to the film as “John Wick” on set:] That’s not true. I came up with “John Wick” as a working title, and it stuck.
By the time production had wrapped, the trio had put it all on the line ,and while they were happy with what they had captured, they were unsure about how it would be received.
Stahelski: I was proud of the work we’d done, but we did joke that we’ll never direct again. We felt that way for the next six months.
Iwanyk: Let me put it this way: Keanu decided to do TV for the first time. Chad went off to direct second unit for a Sacha Baron Cohen movie, and Dave was deeply depressed. No one thought this would help their careers. I thought to myself, “OK, Wick is going to shit the bed, but no one will see it.” I knew we were going to have some interesting action but not enough that anyone would care.
Leitch: I knew we had so much great material. I didn’t know if people would like it as much as we liked it, but as genre fans, I really did feel like we had something special.
Stahelski: When we were going out to buyers after we finished it, they wanted us to digitally lower Keanu’s arm and not do as many headshots. They were like, “You’ve killed 82 people because of a puppy? Nobody’s gonna watch this movie” — and we started to believe them.
Leitch: We showed it to distributors and nobody bought it. I was like “What? But you bought that other action movie with Liam Neeson?” That kind of floored me. It wasn’t until our Fantastic Fest screening that genre fans like us saw it and understood what we were trying to do. They realized these guys are genre fans like us and gave us something we didn’t know we wanted to see — but now we want four more instalments.
Stahelski: We had friends and family walking out of our first test screenings. That how rough it was. Between the headshot blood and the puppy dying, we had friends shaking their heads and going, “Good job, guys, but don’t give up your day job.” It wasn’t until Fantastic Fest that the audience went nuts and we got a real buyer in Lionsgate.
Reeves: I remember how quiet it got when the dog died and people enjoying when I hammered through the floor in the basement. People got on board with what we were hoping to do — the action, the humor, the drama, the emotion. After the first home invasion fight and the club fight people were shouting, “Yeah!”
Leitch: Honestly, it’s pretty crazy [that John Wick has become so iconic]. It struck me for the first time when the Wachowskis were doing the last “Matrix” sequel. There was this confusion that [Keanu] now has a new iconic character called John Wick. Lana [Wachowski] was bringing him back as Neo, but what does Neo look like now, and how does she create a look for him that’s pure Neo and separates him from John Wick? I was like, “This is crazy.”
Stahelski: You have surreal moments where you get out of a bathroom on an airplane and everybody is watching your movie. I’ve read scripts that say, “This is where John Wick action goes,” and you’re like, “How did this happen?”
Iwanyk: At first it was snarky, like, “Do you believe Keanu actually made a good movie directed by stuntmen?” Then it grew, but it grew so gradually there was never a moment where we could celebrate. Even after the film ended its run, we felt like we had averted disaster and got away with something.
Reeves: I’m really grateful that I got to tell these stories with this character and for everything it’s added to my life creatively and personally. It’s really nice to see it appreciated in the world. I’ve been in elevators and on the street and people will just say, “Hello, Mr. Wick.” It’s a special thing and something rare.
Stahelski: Keanu and I would love to do another one. If we had a great idea for another film, we’d do it tomorrow. We love the world, and we’re not tired of it yet — we just don’t know where to go with it right now. We miss it.
Iwanyk: After a couple of scotches, a long meditative ride on a motorcycle, a nap, and some lower back stretches, Keanu will be ready to roll.
Reeves: In the John Wick world, there are tons of stories to be told. For John the character, you never know what will happen, but for me, one of the reasons I liked that he died, and why and how he died, is that I thought it was a very elegant way for the character to find peace. He gains his independence and goes back to love. I like it.
