I think I speak for everybody when I say that every movie Keanu Reeves is involved in is an absolute work of art, including the John Wick series, of course.
So, what better way to celebrate it than to dig into all the little-known behind-the-scenes secrets about the film?!
Here are some interesting facts about John Wick that you may not have known!
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1. The gold coins in the film do not have a set exchange rate.
According to the film’s director, Chad Stahelski, the gold coins do not have a fixed exchange rate.
“People have been annoyed that we didn’t explain the gold coins. You know what? I’m probably not gonna. They’re currency,” he said .
“You don’t explain the dollar bill! They’re a holdover from the Cold War where you couldn’t do denominations. It’s more of a membership card,” he added.
“If you don’t have a gold coin, that’s an identifier. If you pay in gold, they know you’re OK, so it serves two purposes. We always approach it from a realistic point-of-view, even though it’s completely absurd. We like visual storytelling, so gold coins is an entrance level thing .”
2. In order to prepare himself to perform the majority of his own stunts, Keanu took three months of martial arts training, marksmanship, and stunt driving training.
He was, clearly, very committed to bringing Chad’s vision to life!
3. The museum shoot-out scene was filmed to classical music.
“In the museum fight, it’s classical music, it’s Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Early in prep, we had the composer rip out the percussion, and we timed the gunshots to the percussion. So John’s gun becomes the percussion. I know no-one will pick it up but for us, it was a challenge,” Chad explained .
4. Part of the movie was filmed in Montreal, Canada.
The scene where John is being chased in the subway was shot in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Because of that, the French signage was later edited and replaced with the New York City subway signs, in English .
5. The homeless community is supposed to be a counterpoint to the Continental.
“We thought it made perfect sense. When we decided to do this movie, I flew to New York, and just walked around,” the film’s director, Chad Stahelski said .
“Sadly, there are a lot of homeless-looking people – but more so than other areas, they are completely invisible to the populace.”
“I started thinking: if I had to be in the John Wick world, it’s not a bad way to move around the city. The cops don’t care. Nobody cares. We just thought that was really interesting. “
6. The bath scene was Keanu’s idea.
“We had it a couple of different ways: it was in her mansion, her house, and something wasn’t feeling right. We thought, ‘how many times have you seen somebody in a room?’ One day, Keanu’s in our office, he’s just got done working out, we’re talking, and he says “I’ve got an idea. It’s a little wacky. I’m not going to kill Gianna. She’s gonna slit her wrists in a bath house. She’s gonna strip. It’s gonna be confusing. We’ll put this tension in.” He talked me through it and I thought, that’s pretty hardcore .”
7. Although we were lead to believe in the final scene that *everyone* is an assassin, that’s not true.
“Less than 0.5% of the population [are assassins], I would hope! It was probably everybody in that world in Central Park,” Chad explained .
“John Wick just killed more than a hundred people, and [Ian McShane’s character] Winston was just laying down.”
“But the people in the final shot in the parks – they’re not all assassins. You just don’t know. I like ambiguity. It’s like that Invasion Of The Body Snatchers thing – you just don’t know .”
8. John Wick 2 was based off of Greek mythology.
“I am a huge fan of the benefits of a classical education. I have a lot of affection for classical and classical music. We tried to mix and match contradictory images with what’s being seen on screen,” Chad said .
“I don’t know, I want to make a fun action movie, a lot of it is ridiculous.”
“We wanted to make something where if you watch it over and over again , you’ll pick little things up.”
Well, I think we can all agree that it is definitely a fun action movie!
9. Digital editing is used to erase the camera out of certain shots, in order to make stunts look more realistic.
“They used every trick in the book,” Keanu Reeves recalled . “It’s blocking, it’s transitioning, it’s turning the mirrors at certain times, and it’s digital assist. So, they’re erasing the camera out of the images.”
But Keanu tries to perform all of his own stunts wherever possible to make things easier on the editing team.
“I basically work for their vision,” he said . “I wanna make the director, Chad Stahelski, happy because his vision is really limited by what I can do. So, the better I can be, the more people get to see his vision.”
10. Ruby Rose’s character was originally supposed to have lines.
“Some of the lines they give the girl over the bad guy’s shoulder – it’s gotta be a sexy line, it’s gotta be kind of silly. I sat Ruby Rose down and said, look: I’m going to take away all your dialogue. …It was not taken well. She had the look of ‘what the [expletive]?’ on her face. I was like, “Look, you could just be another girl saying the quippy lines, trying to be sexy, giving shit to John, and it’s always going to fall false I think. But why don’t you do sign language,” Chad said .
