John Wick: Chapter 4

2023 - 3 - 25

Post cover — Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

Watch Keanu Reeves and Donnie Yen Battle in 'John Wick: Chapter 4' (The New York Times)

The director Chad Stahelski narrates a sequence involving John Wick in combat with Caine, a blind assassin.

“Donnie Yen is an amazing martial arts performer,” he said. In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays.

'John Wick 4' Box Office: $8.9 Million in Previews, a Franchise Record (Variety)

“John Wick: Chapter 4” is on track to surpass the third movie's record-setting opening weekend with an expected bow between $65 million and $70 million.

The Thursday preview hauls have similarly grown over the years; “John Wick” had $950,000 in domestic previews; “John Wick 2” had $2.2 million and “John Wick 3” had $5.9 million. The original “John Wick” opened with $14 million in 2014, followed by 2017’s “John Wick: Chapter 2” ($30.4 million) and 2019’s “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” ($56.8 million). I just got to be happy and be proud of the fact that I got to spend so much time with him. Rina Sawayama and Hiroyuki Sanada also join the “John Wick” universe alongside returning stars Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne and Lance Reddick, who tragically [died last week at the age of 60](https://variety.com/2023/film/obituaries-people-news/lance-reddick-dead-the-wire-john-wick-1235557886/#:~:text=Popular%20on%20Variety,He%20was%2060.). The fourth installment boasts the largest price tag, costing more than $100 million to produce, but it should finish with the highest total of the series. Lionsgate’s fourth entry opened with $8.9 million in previews at the domestic box office.

'John Wick: Chapter 4' Lands Series High Critic And Audience Scores (Forbes)

I'll admit I would not have predicted we would be both at a fourth John Wick movie, the film would be nearly three hours long, and that critics and audience ...

We will keep our eyes on its box office performance, but it’s already clear that Chapter 4 is going to be a massive success both critically and commercially. No doubt plans for Chapter 5 are already in the works, and we’ll see just how far this thing can go. Early box office returns are trickling in and its possible it ends up as the series best showing there as well. John Wick: Chapter 4 is a full two hours and forty nine minutes, easily the longest in the franchise and as such, with more action than ever. Keanu Reeves has declared that the film is dedicated to Lance Reddick, who played frequent Wick ally Charon. Wick has now put out some of the best numbers we’ve ever seen from him.

'John Wick: Chapter 4' review: Critics amazed by the action-packed ... (Lifestyle Asia)

'John Wick: Chapter 4' starring Keanu Reeves has been getting rave reviews from critics since its screenings. Here's what they say.

Redefines action, and throws light on the vulnerable side of John Wick. I love how the entire franchise is built on the sentence fragment “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” and then just putting all of the ideas for action scenes that come to the writers into a movie. Earns every bit of that runtime, with Keanu Reeves once again performing the most insane stunts and Chad Stahelski providing some of the best action filmmaking. You can hear the inspo most in the score this time around. [March 7, 2023] [#JohnWick4]pulls influence from Sergio Leone Westerns than in previous chapters, woven into the fabric with nuance and sharp craft. This is definitely the biggest & most badass JOHN WICK movie yet w/ a runtime near 3 hours & an ending everyone will be talking about. Lots of surprises in this one that’s going to deliver a divisive ending. The film had its premiere in London on 6 March. He visits old allies in his quest to take down what is known as the High Table — an authority of high-ranking members of the criminal council. John Wick: Chapter 4 continues the story of the titular former assassin who is forced to come out of retirement after Russian mobsters kill a puppy given to him by his late wife. The fourth instalment has long been one of the most anticipated films of 2023. John Wick: Chapter 4 has been getting rave reviews from critics since its premiere and multiple special screenings in Europe and the US.

The Whole Gag is Excess: Chad Stahelski on John Wick: Chapter 4 ... (Roger Ebert)

Keanu Reeves is at the center of this universe as the targeted Wick, fighting his way to a good night's rest one adversary and one stunning sequence at a time.

To show you he’s entering into the world of Gods, he’s coming into this world of deities, and he’s coming in to shift the balance. For me, for every shot I do first, I try to make it the most beautiful shot of the day. It doesn’t just fall out of the sky.” You gotta try, you gotta fail, you gotta stand back up and fail again, and fail again, and fail again, until you get it right. And that reminds me, “Relax, you’re here to make something beautiful, and the crew knows that you’re here, and they respect the craft.” But it’s about dealing with the fear, and knowing that you’re supposed to make mistakes, and even though I’m the director, I’m not supposed to know everything. It’s when you do it in place of something, when you don’t have the money or the time, or the creative thought or the energy and you hide behind what you don’t have. I believe in the yin and yang of that. We want to light guys on fire and for the fire to be the light references. If I think it’s cool and it tingles me, then I’m like, “OK, we’re on the right path.” And then you get your creatives to work. So I wanted to do a little subversive thing where you didn’t know it was coming, so I wanted to keep focused on the character and Scott’s acting ability and how he carries the scene. And we kind of took a little piece of wisdom from all of them about how to change the look of the floors and to use the dragon’s breath [from the shotguns] as a lighting reference. Keanu and I get together on the Monday after, and there’s a bottle of champagne and there’s a bottle of whiskey, depending on which way it goes. It’s funny, you jump out of a plane, and not a lot of people can relate to that, but everybody can relate to slipping on ice.

John Wick: Chapter 4 Ending and End Credits Explained - What's ... (IGN Southeast Asia)

Posted March 24, 2023, 3:50 a.m.. Are you wondering if there's an end-credits scene in the latest Keanu Reeves movie? Well, we'll tell ...

It’s only after the Marquis threatens to kill his daughter if he doesn’t successfully carry out a hit on John that Caine returns to the fold. Oh, and Winston’s thrown in that if John wins, the High Table has to rebuild the New York Continental that they leveled at the beginning of the movie and reinstate him as manager. With his dying breath, John utters the name of his deceased wife Helen as he goes to join her in the hereafter. Though John’s late arrival would mean a win by default for Caine, his sympathy for John’s plight and distaste for the Marquis leads him to help John murder the last of the grunts so that they can attempt to murder each other. I’ll kill them all.” He does so, but he couldn’t have known at the time that he’d have to amend that statement to “we’ll kill them all.” Even though Donnie Yen’s Caine spends much of the film on John’s trail - and even kills their mutual friend Shimazu (Hiroyuki Sanada) for helping him - the assassin’s also a father, and much closer to John in ideology than any of the other killers on the hunt. In any case, when the audience was asked whether they felt Wick was dead and most responded firmly that they did, a bemused Reeves responded with “Really? Each combatant names a second - John chooses Winston (natch), and the Marquis chooses Caine - and over the course of a parley, they settle on the particulars with a game of chance. He’s naming a blind duelist as his champion in a pistol duel with John Wick, a man whose nickname comes from the fact that he’s good enough at shooting guns to kill the Boogeyman. He travels to Berlin to get himself a new “ticket” by carrying out the assassination of Killa (Scott Adkins), securing vengeance for his adoptive sister Katia (Natalia Tena), reinstatement as a member of the Ruska Roma, and of course, the right to challenge the Marquis to a duel. The Marquis pulls Caine (Donnie Yen) out of assassin retirement to hunt down and kill John by using his estranged daughter’s life as a bargaining chip. Chapter 4 sees John Wick and his allies openly challenging the authority of the High Table. They deploy the Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) to oversee the hunt for John personally, imbued with all of their power and influence.