This article contains spoilers for the ending of John Wick: Chapter 4.
One of the more unusual aspects of the John Wick franchise is that it seems to get better every movie. John Wick: Chapter 4 is no different, and in fact it’s the best received movie so far, by both audiences and critics. So good, actually, that the studio was baffled by the decision to make it the last one.
The movie’s currently sitting pretty with a 96%Tomatometer rating and a 97% audience rating – pretty good for a movie about a guy who mostly just murders people, albeit in pretty cool ways.
In a deep dive about the process of making the movie with The Hollywood Reporter, director Chad Stahelski revealed why this was the end, despite the studio’s desire to squeeze every last drop of money from the thing.
Stahelski said when he told executives he was killing off Wick, they sent a note back to the effect of, “What are you f**king thinking?” and “Are you f**king insane?” He told them star Keanu Reeves was on board and that they wanted to give it “a proper goodbye.”
Also, he had doubts. Stahelski said he shot an alternate ending to the funeral scene that was more “mysterious” to leave room for the possibility of a return, but that the test “audience revolted pretty hard,” so they scrapped it.
Initially, there was talk of the director doing parts 4 and 5 together, but Stahelski said that every Wick movie is better than the last and he didn’t feel like that could happen if he filmed them concurrently.
“If I did a fourth and fifth movie together, the fifth movie would just look like four. The colors between three and four are so much different because digital intermediates have improved. DaVince Resolve, the actual program, has evolved, as have cameras like the new Alexas. On number three, we had problems with reds, and now that problem is all gone. So the technology is better, I’m better, but you just need that time.”
He said he even told Reeves “I’m just not good enough to do four and five. I’m good enough to do one.” The movies get better because “we keep getting better,” he said, but he needs time for that to happen.
The handling of Wick’s death was also well thought out, but they kept to the idea that “A good death only comes after a good life,” based on some Samurai principles. The question then became how to give Wick that “good life” at the end.
“[It] was by saving an innocent, by showing friendship and by showing that John actually understands that he’s fucked a lot of people over and that there are consequences to killing 86 people over a puppy. I’m also fascinated by etiquette and ceremony and ritual and that thematic or that chivalrous attitude of the Samurai code, Bushido. We flipped it a little bit, but that’s how we did it.”
John Wick: Chapter 4 is playing in theaters now.