Keanu Reeves urged to be ‘definitively killed off’ in John Wick: Chapter 4, director reveals

Islamabad SEPTEMBER 19 (Online): John Wick: Chapter 4 was supposed to be the end, but Keanu Reeves wanted his character to be definitively killed off. But there is a small chance for Wick.

John Wick: Chapter 4 seemed to be the final chapter for the legendary assassin. John Wick (Keanu Reeves) collapsed on the stairs of the Sacre Coeur in Paris, after defeating the High Table once and for all. And that was exactly what Reeves wanted, according to Basil Iwanyk, the producer of the franchise.

John Wick negotiating with High Table(Lionsgate)
Reeves is exhausted after making these films, as he puts his body and soul into the stunts and the performance. By the time they were making Chapter 4, he had reached his limit, and Iwanyk revealed that Reeves was pleading for Wick to be “definitively” killed off at the end of the film so that he could finally rest. But they couldn’t let go of Wick completely, so they left a small chance for him to survive, as Iwanyk told Collider’s Christina Radish, while promoting the upcoming Wick spin-off, The Continental.

“After the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th movie, making these films is so exhausting and it destroys Keanu, physically and emotionally,” Iwanyk said.
“By the end, he’s always like, ‘I can’t do this again,’ and we agree with him. The guy is just a shell of himself because he just goes off and goes for it. He was like, ‘I wanna be definitively killed at the end of this movie.’ We were like, ‘You know, we’ll leave a 10% little opening.’”

The John Wick director also said that the close relationship between the producers and the filmmakers over the years made them all hesitant to end the franchise, as they would miss working together on the next installment. He compared Stahelski and Reeves to The Beatles, and said he was happy to wait until they come up with another idea for Wick’s story and then they can get back to work.

“We’ve all become such good friends and we all like each other so much and we’re all so tickled by the success of these movies, critically and commercially that we all think to ourselves, ‘Okay, how do we get the band back together, in a way that merits a good story in the next evolution of John.’ At this point, it’s Keanu and Chad [Stahelski] getting together to figure out what that story is. The way I describe it is that they’re like Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and I’m Ringo. They’ll call me and let me know, ‘All right, we’re showing up. Here’s where you show up, and here’s what our story is.’”

Confessing that he doesn’t want to say goodbye to Wick yet, Iwanyk said he was willing to wait until the creative duo were ready again, and then they would go ahead with full force.

“Another John Wick”
“We all want another John Wick. We don’t know what it looks like and when it will happen, but we love each other and we love this world,” he continued. “It’s gonna be all hands to try to figure it out. Have we figured it out? No. And if we can’t figure it out, will there be one? No, of course not. No one is gonna try to just jam it for the sake of jamming it.”