John Wick 4 Had Alternative Ending Filmed, Stahelski Reveals

Director Chad Stahelski revealed that two versions of the ending of John Wick 4 were created. Ultimately, the one that audiences favored at test screenings went into the film.

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Jan Kopacz07 July 2023

Source: John Wick 4, Chad Stahelski, Lionsgate, 2023.

Warning: the text contains spoilers from John Wick 4.

The fourth part of the John Wick represents the culmination of the story of the title character. Chad Stahelski, the film's director, has repeatedly stressed in interviews that he considers the ending of the aforementioned movie to be perfect and could not have found a better finale for the story of a professional assassin.

However, as it turned out, he also considered other, more optimistic and unambiguous ending for the movie. In an interview with Empire Stahelski revealed that they were even filmed. Why, then, did they not make it into the film? The deciding factor was the reaction of viewers during test screenings.

"We shot a different version of the ending. The finale you saw in theaters is the one both I and Keanu wanted. However, we also shot an alternate ending, in which John Wick lives. After test screenings, however, audiences chose the version in which the finale is ambiguous," Stahelski said.

The filmmaker also admitted that while he is completely satisfied with the ending of the fourth part, he was unsatisfied with the finale of previous movie. This is one of the reasons why he decided to make the 2023 film at all. It was largely a matter of wanting to provide the audience with a better finale.

"We didn't feel that we had given it our all. We felt we should have ended the series better. (...) I said: 'I would have been angry if the whole series had ended this way. I would have been angry with the director.' That's when I read a samurai etiquette guide called Hagakure, the art of dying. We realized that John Wick had to die. We just had to figure out the best way for it to happen. We wanted the phrase that 'you can only have a good death if you have a good life' to resonate well," he added.

Recall that although Stahelski considers the fourth movie to be the best ending to Wick's story, the studio responsible for the franchise, encouraged by the success of the latest installment, has already announced the start of work on a sequel. However, it is still unclear whether the fifth movie will actually be made. One thing is certain - the unused finale would leave a door open the door that.

Author: Jan Kopacz

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