Keanu Reeves Explains That Shock Ending – The Hollywood Reporter

[This story contains a major spoiler for John Wick: Chapter 4]

The ending of John Wick: Chapter 4 is coming as a shock for followers.

Wick wins his climatic duel towards the villainous Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Invoice Skarsgård) but is seemingly fatally wounded, having lastly suffered one gunshot too many. He utters his late spouse’s title, “Helen,” who died within the opening of 2014’s John Wick. Wick then seemingly perishes, and the movie’s remaining scene has Winston (Ian McShane) standing at Wick’s grave.

When the movie lately premiered on the South by Southwest Movie & TV Pageant, a fan requested director Chad Stahelski and star Keanu Reeves concerning the ending.

“We had the chance [to do another film] as a result of the viewers [response to] Chapter Three, and we had been like, ‘What was the Why?’” Reeves says, seemingly referring to the overarching motive for Chapter 4 to exist. “And when Chad and I used to be speaking, the Why? was demise – and it was John Wick’s demise. For him to get his peace, or freedom, in a approach … that was the explanation to make the film. It will possibly’t simply be, ‘Let’s do one other one.’ It was actually about demise, or a approach of dying. We had been actually impressed by the Hagakure…”

The Hagakure, Stahelski notes, is a Japanese code of ethics. A e-book dedicated to its teachings, Hagakure: The Ebook of the Samurai, is described “a sensible and religious information for a warrior.”

“We type of took the best way of dying – or the best way we reside nicely to die nicely – because the theme,” Stahelski says.

Reeves was requested what his favourite scene within the movie, and he pointed to Wick’s remaining second. “If I simply checked out from [the perspective of] John – John Wick – perhaps him on the finish on the steps,” he says. “When he says ‘Helen.’ That, for me, after like eight years of taking part in the position and after taking pictures the [massive fight on the other set of stairs], that half that was [a poignant link] to the previous.”

Earlier than the pandemic struck, Stahelski was aiming to shoot a fourth and a fifth installment again to again. The filmmakers later instructed the press they had been taking a wait-and-see strategy. A post-credits scene leaves room for the thought of a spin-off centered on Donnie Yen’s Caine and/or Rina Sawayama’s Akira.

Whereas Reeves and Stahelski sounded fairly agency that the Baba Yaga is deceased, the enhancing of Chapter 4 remaining moments leaves simply sufficient vagueness (Wick isn’t clearly proven lifeless) to present the filmmakers some wiggle room ought to they need to carry him again with some form of faked-his-own-death revelation – although such a transfer would undermine the ability of Chapter 4 ending and wouldn’t make a lot sense (if Wick might have pulled that off all alongside, why would he wait till he lastly fought his approach out of hazard to do it?).

There’s additionally one other chance, ought to Reeves need to return to the position – making a prequel set earlier than Wick retired to cool down together with his spouse, although that may require Wick taking part in a far youthful model of the character than we’d ever seen. Thankfully, as one SXSW viewers member famous to Reeves, he doesn’t appear to age. “Yeah, man, I age,” Reeves replied wearily. “It’s taking place, man.”