Keanu Reeves has amassed a strong faithful fandom all thanks to his action-packed roles in Hollywood. The industry’s nicest guy is currently holding the mantle for the popular John Wick franchise which released its fourth installment this March, which is a rollercoaster ride on its own.
However, the ending might have shocked many fans as to what really happened. But the film director has hinted at an alternate that was even approved by the titular actor.
Keanu Reeves’s John Wick 4 Has an Ambiguous Ending
In a recent interview with Empire, the John Wick franchise’s director, Chad Stahelski shed light on the film, John Wick 4′s ending which ran in theatres. He filmed a sequence where Keanu Reeves‘s character was alive however we all know by now that the final version left an ambiguous ending as the legendary assassin died without exactly showing his death.
The film director mentioned,
“We had a different ending,” Stahelski said. “[The theatrical ending] was the ending Keanu and I wanted, but we shot a different ending. We shot an ending where you actually saw John Wick at the end of the movie. So it was very clear that he was still alive. The audiences we tested with absolutely preferred the ambiguous ending.”
Given that the legendary hitman had his showdown in the last three installments, the film director and Reeves felt that the third installment was missing something.
“We didn’t feel like we had done our best [with ‘Parabellum’]. We both felt like we could have ended the series better. We didn’t feel like we stuck the landing, and that’s a shitty feeling. Because we love the character, we love working together, we love the world.”
That was how they came up with its sequel. It was their chance to redeem what they felt was missing in the third. It was an honorable death to the iconic character.
John Wick’s Death Was What Keanu Reeves Wanted
While the audiences preferred the ambiguous ending which could possibly hint at anything in the franchise’s future, the actor and director wanted his character to die for good.
Stahelski mentioned,
“And I had just read this treatise on samurai etiquette called ‘Hagakure,’ the art of the way of dying. And we’re like, ‘Yeah, he’s got to die. And we got to come up with the coolest way to make[that] happen. We’ve got to make it all about, “You can only had a good death if you had a good life.”‘ That’s the first line we wrote on a napkin in Japan, three years out. We wrote the movie backwards off that one thing.”
While Reeves got what he wanted in one way, ending such a profitable franchise would surely be a huge mistake at least for the studio which is why this “ambiguous” ending came to exist.
John Wick 4‘s Producer Got Candid About Film’s Ambiguous Ending
Film producer, Basil Iwanyck told IndieWire that they deliberately kept its theatrical ending leaving a chance for Reeves to reprise his role.
He shared,
“There are two characters, really. There’s John Wick, and John, the civilian. The question for all of us is, OK, if the audience embraces the story and the box office works, is there another story to be told? I don’t know. But I don’t think we’ve boxed ourselves into any corner, whether he’s dead or alive, at the end of this movie.”
This strategy definitely unlocked the door to the new sequel which is in the works after the new addition to the franchise grossed over $432 million worldwide.
Source: IndieWire
