John Wick: Chapter 4 is surely one of the hot topics to discuss these days. The fourth installment of the blockbuster franchise is finally here after years of wait. Keanu Reeves starrer franchise is adored by fans across the globe. However, fans were recently surprised to hear that the director, Chad Stahelski, had to heavily cut down the movie’s original runtime. As per the reports John Wick: Chapter 4 had its first cut at 3 hours 45 minutes. The director of the movie had to cut short certain scenes to deliver a successful movie.
Chad Stahelski On Reducing The Duration Of John Wick: Chapter 4
Chad Stahelski has directed the fourth installment of the superhit franchise, likely to its predecessors. Stahelski, along with the editor of the movie, Nathan Orloff, revealed in an interview the difficulties in settling down the run time of the movie. The director of the franchise stated that no duration of the movie was pre-decided as the main motive while making the movie was to include genuine content to engage the viewers. Adding on Stahelski marked that the introduction of several side characters needed to be handled carefully as at the end Keanu Reeves’ character is the lead, and just enjoy that time.
“To be really honest with you, zero was planned out. Our first cut was three hours and 45 minutes, and it felt like three hours and 45 minutes. We were like, oh, we’re so screwed. I wanted to make sure that he was still the center of the universe, that everything always led back to him even though we were cutting away from him.”
Stahelski revealed the difficult editing procedure of the movie, where he would cut any scene with repeated ideas. The director cum stuntman emphasized the fact that the entire movie is linear.
“I went through a pass where anytime someone repeated an idea they had already expressed, I cut it out. No repeated ideas. It’s a very linear story, so there wasn’t a ton of reconstruction or rearrangement we could do. It was just a matter of sifting out what we didn’t need. You’ll never know if a five-minute car scene or a 10-minute car scene is good until you watch the whole movie.”
Chad Stahelski Reveals That His Editing Team Hates Him
The idea of Chad Stahelski surely sounds genuine to present an ideal movie with lots of engagement in a limited time sounds sweet but the pain to make this true was endowed on the editing team, who had to run over the movies multiple times to ensure efficient editing. Stahelski stated that his editing team must have hated him to incorporate multiple changes as per him.
“My editorial staff probably hates me because even if we just took 30 seconds out of something, I’d make everybody watch the movie again. That’s the only way you know you have the right pace. You feel that bump in movies all the time because they were doing it in pieces and not seeing it as a whole. The last thing you want to do is treat it as a bunch of parts.”
Editing the movies is of grave importance, or else it may result in Zack Snyder’s situation. The situation with Justice League is well-known in the movie industry. Zack Snyder was the original director of the movie but had to step away during post-production due to personal reasons. Joss Whedon was brought in to complete the movie, but his vision for the movie was vastly different from Snyder’s, and he ended up reshooting a large portion of the movie. The final product that was released in theaters was widely criticized by fans and critics alike, leading to the demand for the release of the Snyder Cut years later.
Reeves’ performance is a crucial element of the John Wick franchise, and, understandably, Stahelski would want to ensure that his performance is given the proper attention and time on screen. There is a fine line between delivering a satisfying story and overwhelming the audience with too much content, and it appears like the director of the movie along with the editorial team has tried their best to achieve this goal. John Wick: Chapter 4 will release on March 24. 2023.
Source: IndieWire
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