Keanu Reeves' initial mistake turned out to be exactly the right call when it came to his massive action franchise, 'John Wick.'
Keanu Reeves' initial mistake turned out to be exactly the right call when it came to his massively popular action franchise, John Wick.
Co-creator and screenwriter Derek Kolstad recently spoke to Comicbook.com and revealed that the original title of the film was supposed to be "Scorn" -- which makes sense given the plot line of the first film, which features Reeves' character, retired assassin John Wick, getting revenge on the men who broke into his home, stole his car and killed his beloved dog. However, Reeves kept calling the movie after his character, John Wick, and the rest was history.
"The only reason it's called John Wick is that Keanu kept referring to it as John Wick," Kolstad says. "Marketing was like, 'Dude, that's four to five million dollars in free advertising so far, so it's John Wick instead of Scorn.' I can't imagine it being Scorn now."
The next installment of the franchise, John Wick: Chapter 4, is not set to be released until May 27, 2022. Kolstand says they are going to push through with the highly anticipated film once the industry opens up again after the coronavirus pandemic.
"But I think everyone out here has been a little bit rattled by what productions are going to look like, what movies are going to look like," Kolstad says. "And yet, when you look at IP, when you look at a successful franchise, it becomes all the more important and all the more important reason to do it well."
ET spoke to Reeves last May at the premiere of Netflix's Always Be My Maybe, and he talked about the success of the John Wick franchise. The latest installment, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, took in $105.5 million worldwide during its opening weekend and unseated Avengers: Endgame from the top spot at the box office.
"It's really special the way the film was embraced," he said. "It's something that you hope for, but it's still pretty extraordinary. It's really so special."
Reeves also talked about the franchise getting a fourth installment.
"We'll see what happens, but it's really cool to at least have the opportunity and the only way we get that opportunity is if people enjoy what we're doing," he noted. "So it was cool for the studio to support that and say, 'OK, you can keep telling this story.'"
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