The Keanu Reeves movie that copied James Cameron: “I ripped him off thematically”
The John Wick movies are a love letter to the action genre. The first four films in the series, which revolve around the formerly retired hitman, have all been directed by Chad Stahelski, who was a successful stuntman before getting behind the camera. He appeared in everything from The Crow to Wild Wild West to The Matrix, where he stood in for Keanu Reeves long before he would serve as his boss. It bears mentioning that David Leitch, who co-directed the first John Wick alongside Stahelski, also has a history in stunt performing.
Given the pedigree of everyone involved in the insanely popular franchise, it’s no surprise that it’s borrowed elements from other famous action films over the years. Stahelski, according to a conversation had with HeyUGuys, was particularly afraid of jumping the shark when it came to John Wick: Chapter 2, so they looked to one of the greatest action sequels ever produced for guidance.
“We followed the analogy of James Cameron,” he confessed. “I ripped him off thematically speaking as I wanted to expand the world like he did in Aliens and add in more action, a little bit more brutality to the action but at the same time let you off by being more comedic and I took that model as a way to go through it instead of killing another puppy, which I didn’t think I could get away with!”
Aliens, which came out seven years after the original film, saw Cameron take over the reins of the franchise from Ridley Scott. While Alien is a more isolated, slow-paced thriller – a slasher flick with an extraterrestrial as the killer – its successor is a pure shoot ‘em up.
It took Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley out of the Nostromo and into a wider world of colonial marines and Xenomorph queens, putting a gun in her hand and several legendary quips in her mouth. This approach wasn’t guaranteed to deliver, but Aliens is now widely considered among the best action films and best sequels of any genre ever made.
Whilst the first film in the series focussed on the title character’s quest for revenge after the saddest dog murder since I Am Legend, John Wick: Chapter 2 fully re-submerges the black-suited killer in the seedy underworld. Stahelski and his team turned up the craziness for their second outing, packing the film with more stunts, more gunfights, and more spectacular visuals. This approach paid off, as the movie scored rave reviews across the board and made more than double what its predecessor did at the box office.
Along with classic action films, Stahelski also drew on his own experience working in the movies, which included some rather unexpected inspiration. “As a martial arts choreographer, I studied dance a lot,” he revealed. “ As a gag to all the people who helped me with the dance choreographer mentality, the final scene in the museum it’s done to classical music.” The scene in question, which sees Wick pursue his enemy Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) through an art gallery, is set to a remixed version of the ‘Summer’ concerto from Antonio Vivaldi’s Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons).
“We took the percussion, and we stripped it out of the score and ran it through a synthesiser, took all the percussion out and choreographed to the guns, which filled in the beat,” Stahelski said. “If you go back and turn off the music John is actually doing the percussion beats in the piece.”
