In terms of consistent quality, there are very few – if any – better active franchises in Hollywood at the moment than John Wick.
The first three installments all won plenty of critical acclaim and audience approval, while the fact box office takings nearly quadrupled between the opener and Chapter 3 – Parebellum just goes to show that paying customers are desperate for their next fix of assassination action.
Mercifully, those prayers are about to be answered at long last as the delayed fourth installment gears up to explode into theaters later this month, with the early reactions indicating that director Chad Stahelski has knocked it out of the park yet again. Many superlatives have been used to describe the sharp-suited Continental capers over the last nine years, but in an interview with SlashFilm, the architect of the violent masterpieces may have become the first person in recorded history to settle on “goofy.”
“We know we’re making this goofy, modern-day fantasy action movie that combines samurai, wuxia, dogs, cars, guns, whatever, but we still see ourselves as artsy filmmakers. I think with all my crew, we have this little mantra of, ‘If it’s not beautiful, why are we doing it?’ I consider myself very much a craftsman, and my crew are craftsmen, with the dream of becoming an artist.
We’re very good at what we do technically, but it’s the translation of what we do into that next level that becomes artistry. So we just figured, ‘Well, why not? We might as well try to be artists, and given enough practice and the right amount of time and the right opportunity, maybe we will one day do something that’s worthy of that.'”
In Stahelski’s defense, you can see where he’s coming from when an entire shared universe that’s got a prequel TV series and feature-length spinoff on the way was all born from somebody killing a dog, but that’s just one of the many reasons why John Wick has become such a beloved part of the pop culture pantheon, and long may it continue.