From Retirement to Retribution: The Rise of John Wick (Part 1)

 (A version of this article originally appeared on kernelnow.com / mynewslike.com)

Stop, or my John will shoot
(source: Lionsgate)

  HEAVY SPOILERS FOR ALL THREE JOHN WICK FILMS FOLLOW BELOW

In the blockbuster months of 2014, movie audiences everywhere were readying themselves for the likes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Godzilla and The Expendables 3. Little did many of them know that just on the horizon was an ice-cold, super-cool, 500 million-dollar hitman waiting to strike.

John Wick was released in October 2014, surprising analysts by taking double its projected $7 million opening weekend box office. It didn’t take long for the movie to eclipse its $20 million budget – a sum that is, ludicrously, small change in the world of action blockbusters – and out of nowhere, a hit franchise was born. But how exactly did ‘The Baba Yaga’ get to a third film and such astronomical financial figures?

The most obvious answer would be “Keanu Reeves”. The now-54 year-old star seems like the perfect crossover movie star, having been around long enough to pull in those who miss the star vehicle action cinema of old, and yet able to compliment the new age of casual film consumption. He’s both a big-screen legend and a social trend, powerful enough to turn down the might of Marvel Studios and approachable enough to send the internet into a meme-making frenzy when cameo-ing in romcom Always Be My Maybe. However, it’s very easy to say that in the summer of 2019; five years ago, it was a different story altogether.  

The last sight that 290 (and counting) souls have seen
(source: Lionsgate)

Much like his alter ego in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, for a while it seemed as though Reeves was excommunicado from the mainstream action table. For a brief window, he defined Hollywood cool – though he was never DiCaprio or Pitt, there was a time when the leather trenchcoats, flip phones and sunbed-thin sunglasses he sported in The Matrix were the toast of the fashion world. And then, suddenly, he was gone; perhaps two underwhelming Matrix sequels or the holiday 2013 flop 47 Ronin were to blame, but as it so often does, the cultural world swiftly moved on. He was keenly aware of it, too; when asked by Indiewire just before the release of John Wick about how he felt about only receiving two big-budget roles in 5 years, he said frankly: “It sucks.”

Like the silent-but-ruthless Clint Eastwood in The Dollars Trilogy or the handsome clown Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, characters often become iconic when they share the personalities of the actors playing them. John Wick is formerly the biggest name in the world of contract killing, a man fresh out of exile whose exploits seem to exist only in the realm of nostalgia. When he makes his comeback, he’s dismissed by so many of the ‘new blood’ that he vanquishes, with only the ‘old guard’ to respect and warn of his prowess. As Russian crime kingpin Viggo Tarasov says to his naysaying son, “That f—king nobody is John Wick!” It’s a self-aware line, as it’s not difficult to imagine older viewers having the same conversation with the newer generation, swapping the name “John Wick” for “Keanu Reeves”. Tragically, Reeves and Wick both share another similarity: both the character and his player lost their partners far too young, Reeves’s girlfriend Jennifer Syme passing away aged just 28, and Wick’s wife Helen succumbing to a similar fate at an apparently-similar age. 

One (hit)man and his dog – the catalyst for all
(source: Lionsgate)

Besides utilising the internet power of Keanu Reeves, John Wick also had at its crux a cruel motive that seems especially harrowing in the Online Age. Dog appreciation is nowadays everywhere on social media, with people coming in their thousands to show their admiration and fascination with other people’s pets. Whether it was a deliberate move or not, the moment early on in the film where a Russian mobster and his goons murder the puppy – not a dog, a puppy – left behind for John by Helen secured audience support for the stoic executioner. The idea of a dog being the symbol of both loyalty and innocence is not a new one; the idea of a random dog belonging to a collective of strangers is. John Wick deftly tapped into this new collective mind-set just as it was taking off.

With an $88.8 million profit – over 440% of its budget – John Wick was a runaway success. It wasn’t just audiences showing their appreciation, either; critics swooned for the neo-noir thriller. Visually, the film was a unique hit; the word “stylish” seemed to appear in every single write-up of the film. Of course, alongside this was near-universal praise for the resurgent Keanu Reeves. Rotten Tomatoes, the standard-bearer of modern film appreciation, summed it up: “Stylish, thrilling, and giddily kinetic .. a satisfying return to action for Keanu Reeves – and what looks like it could be the first of a franchise.”

That last part proved to be prophetic.

‘The Baba Yaga’ comes again.
(source: Lionsgate)

John Wick: Chapter 2 was confirmed in May 2015, filmed in October of the same year and released in February 2017. In the surest confirmation of success that the film industry has to offer, the sequel had double the budget of its forerunner, coming in at a cool $40 million. Both the story and the visuals picked up almost exactly where its predecessor left off, events on-screen taking place four days after Wick was last seen and re-familiarizing audiences with the same neon sleek palette that was fast becoming iconic.

John Wick was here to stay.