“John Wick 4” should take the saga carried by Keanu Reeves into another dimension. In any case, it has the inspirations for it, references to great films and an epic breath, as its director has just declared.
John Wickfrom neo-noir to epic action movie
When Derek Kolstad sells his screenplay entitled Scornto the company Thunder Road Pictures, he is far from imagining that he will be at the origin of one of the top performing action franchises contemporary cinema. It is that the screenwriter, then 38 years old, only has on his CV a credit for re-writing the film shoot the killerand the DTV script with Dolph Lundgren Killers Game: Blood Debt. But his Scorn will change everything, since in 2013 Keanu Reeves accepts to play the main role, and it is on the suggestion of the actor that the film changes title to become John Wick.
Derek Kolstad’s inspirations then come from the films he grew up with, and particularly from the neo-noir genre. As for action, he designs it violent and brutal. He thus has The Raid in mind, Indonesian action and martial arts film released in 2011 and quickly became a major reference. Fan of revenge movies, the screenwriter finds the idea of the death of the dog just thinking about what he would do if we touched both of his…
Still at the scenarios of John Wick 2 and John Wick 3 – he shares the latter with Shay Hatten, Chris Collins and Marc Abrams -, Derek Kolstad is no longer in the game for John Wick 4. If he has forever the paternity of the characters, the writing is no longer in his hands but between those of Shay Hatten and Michael Finch. And for this fourth opus, the inspirations have changed, as its director Chad Stahelski has just declared.
Great inspirations for John Wick 4
After John Wick : Parabellum, John Wick finds himself in open war against the High Table, the highest authority that governs his universe. To emerge victorious from this ultimate confrontation, he will have to face new enemies. Some of whom happen to be former allies… In an interview with EmpireChad Stahelski unveiled some inspirations for John Wick 4. And these are as surprising as they are prestigious.
If you take “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, cross it with “Zatoïchi” and add some Greek mythology, you get something close.
Just that… The inspiration that we can already discern in the film’s trailer is that of Zatoichi. This one is a Japanese fictional character, created in 1961, and is a traveling blind masseur. Although blind, he is an outstanding fighter, specialist in sword fighting. Character from 27 films, the latest being the Zatoichi of Takeshi Kitano released in 2003, and of 100 episodes of series, it is clearly at the origin of Caine, the blind assassin played by Donnie Yen in John Wick 4.
Another prestigious inspiration, The good, the bad and the ugly, one of the greatest westerns in the history of cinema, directed in 1966 by Sergio Leone. From what we know of John Wick 4 to this day, it is more difficult to recognize it. But Chad Stahelski evokes multiple intrigues, with perhaps therefore main characters with more or less common interests but with different means… We also know, as already mentioned by Keanu Reeves and visible in the trailer, that there will be at least a sequence on horseback.
Greek myth for an epic film
Last influence claimed by the director, that of Greek mythology. If he does not cite a particular myth, we nevertheless understand that the idea is to give an epic setting at John Wick 4. After three films which laid the foundations of the universe and then developed it on a single and unique principle, the fourth aims to introduce the story of John Wick in another dimension. A mythological dimension therefore.
It gets a little scary after the third movie, because we have a formula that works. But we must avoid comfort and say to ourselves on the contrary: “We forget that, we are not going to do the same thing again.” So now, for the fourth film, we have several storylines. The movie is different. It’s more epic.
We can therefore expect titanic confrontations, gaining in spectacularity what they lose in realism. And in any case, witness an action on an unprecedented scale.
John Wick 4 arrives at the cinema March 22, 2023.
