Yahoo News ‘John Wick 4’ Shot an Ending Where It’s ‘Very Clear He’s Still Alive,’ but Test Audiences Weren’t Happy: They ‘Preferred the Ambiguous Ending’
Is John Wick actually dead? It’s the question every Keanu Reeves fan was asking after “John Wick: Chapter 4” opened in March. The film ended with John’s presumable death after competing in a duel to free himself from the High Table. John gets shot in the third round of the duel and seemingly dies on the steps of the Basilica of Sacré Coeur while seeing a vision of his late wife, Helen. The film then cuts to a a final scene of Winston (Ian McShane) and the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) visiting John’s gravestone.
In a new interview with Empire magazine, “John Wick: Chapter 4” director Chad Stahelski revealed for the first time that a more concrete ending to the action tentpole was filmed and tested. In this version of the film, there’s no question that John Wick survives the events of the duel.
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“We had a different ending,” Stahelski said. “[The theatrical ending] was the ending Keanu and I wanted, but we shot a different ending. We shot an ending where you actually saw John Wick at the end of the movie. So it was very clear that he was still alive. The audiences we tested with absolutely preferred the ambiguous ending.”
The ambiguous ending of “John Wick: Chapter 4” has led many to wonder if Keanu Reeves will return for a fifth “John Wick” movie. A “John Wick 5” now seems like more of a possibility given Reeves and Stahelski flirted with outright confirming John’s survival at the end of “Chapter 4.”
“I don’t know, I guess I’m going to have to lean on ‘never say never,’” Reeves told Entertainment Weekly after “Chapter 4” opened about making another sequel. “I mean, I wouldn’t do a ‘John Wick’ film without [director] Chad Stahelski. We’d have to see what that looked like. For me, it feels really right that John Wick finds peace.”
John Wick’s potential death was the driving force behind Reeves’ interest in making “John Wick: Chapter 4” in the first place. As the actor said during a post-screening Q&A at the SXSW Film Festival, “When Chad and I were talking about it, the ‘why’ is death, and it was John Wick’s dead. For him to get his peace or his freedom in a way, that was the reason to make the movie. You gotta have the ‘why.’”
In an interview with IndieWire, franchise producer Basil Iwanyk said the finale of “John Wick: Chapter 4” is “an ambiguous ending.” He added about Wick’s death, “I’ll put it that way. We don’t have this answer.”
“There are two characters, really,” Iwanyk added. “There’s John Wick, and John, the civilian. The question for all of us is, OK, if the audience embraces the story and the box office works, is there another story to be told? I don’t know. But I don’t think we’ve boxed ourselves into any corner, whether he’s dead or alive, at the end of this movie.”
Surely Lionsgate doesn’t want to say goodbye to Reeves just yet. “John Wick: Chapter 4” broke franchise records with its huge $73.5 million opening and pushed the franchise passed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office. Whether or not a fifth movies come to fruition, the “John Wick” franchise will continue in 2024 with the Ana de Armas-starring spinoff “Ballerina,” which features Reeves’ assassin in a supporting role.
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