Director Chad Stahelski reveals John Wick 4 initially clocked at whopping three hours and 45 minutes - “Oh, we’re so screwed”

Keanu Reeves’ upcoming action extravaganza John Wick: Chapter 4, which currently has a runtime of two hours 50 minutes, initially clocked in at a whopping three hours and 45 minutes runtime, as revealed by the director Chad Stahelski.

Director Chad Stahelski reveals John Wick 4 initially clocked at whopping three hours and 45 minutes – “Oh, we’re so screwed”

“To be really honest with you, zero was planned out,” Stahelski said about the film’s runtime in a conversation with IndieWire. “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 significant increase in the runtime can be attributed to the expansion of the world of John Wick and the introduction of new characters in the movie, from Rina Sawayama’s Akira to Shamier Anderson’s Mr. Nobody and Donnie Yen’s blind assassin Caine.

“I wanted to make sure that [John] was still the center of the universe,” editor Nathan Orloff said, “that everything always led back to him even though we were cutting away from him. You just compress, compress, compress,” the editor added. “I went through a pass where anytime someone repeated an idea they had already expressed, I cut it out. 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.”

Stahelski also shared that he made the post-production team re-watch the film whenever even 30 seconds of footage were lost, to maintain the movie's engaging flow. “My editorial staff probably hates me because even if we just took 30 seconds out of something, I’d make everybody watch the movie again,” Stahelski said. “That’s the only way you know you have the right pace. You feel that bump in movies all the time because they were doing it in pieces and not seeing it as a whole. The last thing you want to do is treat it as a bunch of parts.”

Lionsgate and PVR Pictures will release John Wick: Chapter 4 in theaters on March 24, 2023 in India.

Also Read: Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski dedicate John Wick: Chapter 4 to late costar Lance Reddick