The John Wick franchise – / Movie

The summer cinematic season will be marked by the triumphal arrival of John Wick: Chapter Three – Parabellum. If ever a film can be a drop of microphone, this is the last chapter of the new enthusiast of killing machines and dogs, John Wick. The sequel has it all, starting with another performance by Keanu Reeves that leaves a big mark on pop culture.

Director Chad Stahelski attributes the success of the franchise to Reeves, with whom he has been working since The matrix. When Stahelski says that the actor gives the best of every image in this film, no one could question it. Reeves brings credibility to poetic and ridiculous action, a sincerity to drama, a powerful presence and a sense of role ownership. John Wick, as we have come to know him and love him, would not be John Wick in the hands of another actor.

During our extensive interview with Stahelski following the opening of the box office franchise, he explained why the public contacts Reeves as a Wick, how he always looks for beauty in his films, how he turns in the action, and more.

Telling John Wick's stories in chapters rather than a trilogy, what kind of freedom does this give you? Is it less restrictive?

If you're familiar with one of the other films, we're trying to tell a story a bit different from a story-based film or a three-act movie. We often joke that we have two acts: the man and the mission. I am a big fan of Kurosawa, I am a big fan of Sergio Leone, who instead of intriguing, it's more a trip. You follow a week in the life of an assassin and John Wick takes you through our world.

Rather than doing this whole massive arc of character, we try to stay focused on the themes, and we talk about grief and consequences, so that the conversation really begins. What are our options? What would John Wick really do? What would we do if we were John Wick? What is the normal thing? Try to turn around and react as if you were really in the story. It's kind of the way we get the ends we have and John's motivation. That's really where it starts.

As these are chapters, it's not a third film to close, whether he dies or finds peace and lives in a booth. But another end at one point was considered, right? What was it?

We are talking back to development. Nothing that was actually written. But originally, we were trying to break the timeline, and there's a little joke behind the cameras, we did not have plans apart from one movie at a time. When we played John Wick 1. My colleague, Dave Leitch, and I thought that was the end. We will be lucky if we can get a director position again. We did chapter two and it was the same, so Keanu and I said, "We will never work again."

While Chapter Three, we say, "Oh, okay." We analyze it as follows: "Okay, the guy did this amazing trip. He killed hundreds of people. It is out of the question that this guy goes until sunset. It will not be a happy ending. There will be an end and moments of lightness, but any comedy is a tragedy, any tragedy is a comedy, depending on where you look at the end point. And then we said, "Okay. Where is the only way out that guy can go? "

When we started designing number three, we said, "Look, man, you can not beat the high table. You can not beat karma. You can not beat fate. Now, in the way that it ends, there are traces of our idea in Winston's speech in the glass house. You know – it's not about who you choose to live like, but it's who you choose to die for. And that was the theme on which we were going to try to finish the movie with John Wick's choice of not knowing who he wants to live for, but who he wants to die for, and he wants to die as honorable, someone 39, one that his wife can be. proud of.

With the end, I like to think that it goes back to what it was, old John Wick. For you and Keanu Reeves, who was old John Wick?

In the first film, when he entered the bathroom, there was only John Wick left to meet his wife. Someone who, deliberately or by mistake, has tried to live life with that coldness and harshness, that determination to carry out a task, instead of filling it with love and passion. Yes, he lived in each one of us. How do you fill your day with love and hate, hate and remorse, or is it about hope, value and honor? It's all these things mixed in a very simplistic journey of a guy to find who he is. He can see all the mirrors and all the reflections, so there will always be a bit of duality.

John Wick is probably a very empty person inside. A lot of talk, a lot of things going on in the head, but an empty heart. After that, he has experience and has something jealous, but you get a common consequence, and he can not fully realize it. In the first film, I'm sure he's very conflicted about who he is or who he should become. I therefore hope that the John Wick you see at the end of the third film is a completely different character from the one you saw at the beginning, middle or end of one or the other. other of the first two films.

You feel the blows that he takes in this movie. The brutality stung him a little more, like the knife in the eyes or something more subtle as a dancer who peels nails. What made you want to go a little harder with violence?

I understand that and I can see where you are coming from. I have been choreographing for so long and I do not want to feel it's dehumanizing or insensitive, there are levels of violence in the movies that I do not want to experiment with. I also have my limits. The action in the movie, I do not really look at it. I do not seek the gore, I do not seek the value of shock, I do not even seek the psychological torment. I'm just looking, okay, a guy gets stung in the eye because he's fragile. Special forces, law enforcement and the armed forces know that head shots are very prevalent in the work of firearms. So, we are just doing what normal people are doing real. You miss bullets, shoot people in the head. So we try to do it.

If you have a knife, fight the head, the neck, the throat, things you do not really see in the movies, they are legitimate targets and they are things that they do, so we do it. We were not aware of trying to elevate ourselves in terms of violence; we just choreographed and then we generated the effects and consequences of what we choreographed.

As for the theater of pain and toenail, this is my exit from Nietzsche. Our suffering, life suffers, I completely believe it. One hundred percent, I believe it. I am a big fan of Nietzsche. I believe in Joseph Campbell, a fractured hero, put the guy in a pain theater. The more you beat him, the more you feel like John pays for what he does. You can only shoot at as many people. Because he's doing these things, he's paying the price. Karma slaps him back and that makes more justifiable what we do with John.

In addition, it is a small tribute to many dance choreographers, such as Bob Fosse, ballet choreographers that I draw a great influence. The martial arts choreography for film is a hundred times more similar to dance than to competitive martial arts, combative martial arts. So, if you've gone backstage and watched the ballerinas train and watch the abuse, they're some of the toughest athletes on the planet in my mind. So it's not just sweet tippy feet: they fear hardcore athletes and you just want to show what they've been through, and cut their toenails was part of it. It's also a character capable of shooting, you're going to have to take care of Russia Ruska Roma, the Russian gypsy crowd, assassins or assistants, so that's the level of tenacity you're going to have.

Was the school John come back at all inspired by the childhood of Jackie Chan at the Peking Opera School?

Yes, it's a good analogy. It was mentioned to me several times during the film. Great comparison. Was it really inspired that way? I think it's a good comparison, I'd like. I would like to be so smart.

[Laughs] As this is your third movie and your second sequel, what are the biggest logistical and creative challenges to a successful sequel, especially with respect to Chapter three?

There is a logistics: how much money, how long. We exchange money for the time. You start with so many days and then, because you want to do New York and you want a glass house, you start to sterilize some resources to place them somewhere else, and it's always a challenge, but certainly not the bigger. Each film goes through a logistical and planning frustration.

We are essentially creating an original property; he does not have a comic book or a book. Literally, Keanu and one of our department heads or one of our editors came up with ideas for creating this world. It all started small and we grew up a bit, but we are tempted to come back to what people laughed at the first laugh, to bring back the same characters and make the same gags. Play safety, do the same kind of action, and then, the challenge, can we do better? Can we do something a little different? They call this the curse of the sequel. They love the first movie because it's original, but by its very nature, the sequel can not be original in the same way as the first, because it's a sequel. [Laughs]. So, how to become original, how to keep the public invested in what he likes and at the same time show him something new? They want to see him again, but they do not want you to repeat exactly. It is this fine line, and for any filmmaker doing a sequel, whether it is his own original thing, to put himself in someone else's place or in place of someone else. another one is probably the biggest challenge for me.

To tell you the truth, it scared me, shit. I did not literally have nausea every day on the set. Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Am I going too far from the circuit in developing this? And that's always what happens in a John Wick movie. No rules, but at the same time, you must keep it content but always open. This is the strangest feeling that has ever been created, and it's the biggest obstacle.

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