John Wick 4’s First Cut Was Extremely Long: “We’re So Screwed,” Director Remembers Thinking

At 169 minutes, John Wick: Chapter 4 is the longest entry in the Keanu Reeves action series so far, but it was originally even longer. Director Chad Stahelski told IndieWire that the studio never gave him a mandate about length, but when the first cut came in at 225 minutes, or 3 hours and 45 minutes, they knew it was too long.

“To be really honest with you, zero was planned out,” Stahelski said. “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.”

The lengthy runtime was due in part to how the first cut originally spent more time focusing on the film’s new characters. However, Stahelski and editor Nathan Orloff pared it back to make sure the focus was on Wick. “I wanted to make sure that he was still the center of the universe, that everything always led back to him even though we were cutting away from him,” Orloff said.

Orloff said the idea was to “compress, compress, compress” and to cut out any instances of characters repeating an idea they had already expressed.

“No repeated ideas. It’s a very linear story, so there wasn’t a ton of reconstruction or rearrangement we could do. It was just a matter of sifting out what we didn’t need,” he said.

For comparison, the longest runtime in the series so far was John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, which was 131 minutes. John Wick Chapter 2 was 122 minutes and the original John Wick was 101 minutes.

In addition to Keanu Reeves as John Wick, the film brings back Ian McShane and Laurence Fishburne, while newcomers include Bill Skarsgard, Donnie Yen, and Clancy Brown. Lance Reddick returns as Charon in one of his final roles following his recent passing at the age of 60. The movie opens in theaters on March 24.

Apart from John Wick 4, a spinoff titled Ballerina starring Ana de Armas is in production.