With a running time of almost three hours, “John Wick 4” surpasses its predecessors. Now director Chad Stahelski reveals that the first version of the film was actually much longer.
John Wick 4 (Source: Leonine)
- “John Wick 4” lasts almost three hours and uses this time for 14 action scenes.
- To ensure that the timing is right and that it never gets boring, the first film version had to be thoroughly revised.
- The latest Keanu Reeves movie was an hour longer after filming finished!
In action films, it’s often the tempo that counts, lengths or breathers have no place here. It was all the more surprising that “John Wick 4” is a whole 169 minutes long and thus just barely misses the 3-hour mark.
Luckily director Chad Stahelski didn’t stretch the film unnecessarily, instead it deserves every minute and action fans might even wish that “John Wick 4” was an hour longer.
In fact, there was a version of the film that would have broken action film records with a running time of 3 hours and 45 minutes. Anyone hoping for an extended version for home cinema should curb their anticipation, because Stahelski wasn’t satisfied with this extra-long first cut version of “John Wick 4”.
Our first cut was three hours and 45 minutes, and it felt like three hours and 45 minutes. We were like, “Oh, we’re so screwed!”
Chad Stahelski interviewed by IndieWire
Stahelski and editor Nathan Orloff had no specific requirements for the length of the film, they just had to feel right about it. So they watched the footage over and over again and removed every unnecessary scene.
You just compress, compress, compress. I went through a phase where whenever someone repeated an idea they had already voiced, I would cut it out. No repeated ideas. It’s a very linear story, so there wasn’t much that we could remodel or rearrange. It was just a matter of sifting out what we didn’t need.
Nathan Orloff
Stahelski is now certain his team hates him for having to watch the film in its entirety countless times, even if just thirty seconds were removed from the edit. However, the director thinks that you shouldn’t watch the film in sections but as a whole, otherwise the end result won’t be complete.
You can now check in the cinema whether the effort was worth it and whether Stahelski was able to find the perfect length for “John Wick 4”. You can find out more about the first action highlight of the year in our review!
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