It’s hard to imagine a John Wick movie where only three people get killed, but that’s all that was in the original script.
If you’ve watched all three John Wick movies, you’ve probably lost count of the number of deaths that occur over the course of the series. (We’d expect nothing less from a film where Keanu Reeves plays a highly-skilled assassin.) In fact, it’s hard to envision a John Wick installment without all the death and gore, but apparently, the initial vision for the franchise was far more tame.
Speaking with ComicBook.com, John Wick director Chad Stahelski talked about how few casualties were in the original script for the first film, painting a very different picture that what actually ended up on the canvas. It was only after Stahelski joined the project that it began to resemble what we see today: basically, one big bloodbath.
“It was much more contained,” Stahelski recalled. “I think only three people died in the original script; two were in a car crash. It was very, very minimal, and it was slightly different.”
I don’t know about you, but I’d say that sounds very different from the final product. The first John Wick movies includes around 80 deaths, and most of them are more violent than a car crash. And things just ramp up for the sequels.
“People joke about it , but the way I choreograph with my guys and stuff, we just choreograph motion and set pieces and we try to get this balletic kind of dance, live performance feel to everything,” Stahelski added.
And John’s kill count is only likely to increase, what with a fourth movie already in the works and a fifth slated to start filming directly after. The high-stakes action makes these films that much more fun, so we really can’t complain. (Just please don’t kill any more of John Wick’s dogs.)
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