3h45 of John Wick 4: How It Almost Became the Longest Action Movie in History!

Released in theaters on March 22, John Wick 4 surprised fans with its length: 2 hours and 49 minutes of almost non-stop action.

According to director Chad Stahelski, Episode 4 of The Bloody Adventures of Baba Yaya could have been even longer and more shocking. Indeed, the first cut lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes, almost as long as the longer versions of Lord of the Rings!

he asked IndieWireThe filmmaker caused the river length of this John Wick 4. “To be completely honest, there was nothing pre-planned about the length of the film.”– says the director.

“Our first edit was 3 hours and 45 minutes, with the editor-in-chief Nathan OrloffWe said to ourselves, ‘Oh, we’re really at a dead end.’Chad Stahelski recalls.

One of the reasons for the longevity of this opus is the introduction of new characters such as Marquis, Kane, Shimazu, Akira or Tracker. As editor Nathan Orloff explains, they had to be characterized without leaving John Wick aside.

“I wanted to make sure John stayed at the center of the universe. We had to bring everything back to him, even when he was out of the picture.”

Our first edit was 3 hours and 45 minutes. With editor-in-chief Nathan Orloff, we said to ourselves: Oh, we’re really in deep shit.

The main idea for the editor-in-chief was to cut out all the ideas that had already been expressed and to clean the film of everything that could overload the narrative.

“The story is very linear, so there wasn’t much to do or rearrange. We just got rid of what we didn’t need.”Nathan Orloff explains.

For his part, Chad Stahelski, obsessed with detail, had his post-production team go through the entire film in every 30-second cut to keep everything consistent. “The editing team probably hates me for it”the director joked.

“I think that’s the only way to know if you’re on the right track or not. You always feel this disconnect in films because they’re processed in small pieces and not seen as a whole. The last thing you need to do is process. Work in small pieces.”The filmmaker emphasizes.

Finally, John Wick 4 runs for 2 hours and 49 minutes, a length that doesn’t seem to scare fans! Will the movie beat the record of episode 3 and its 328 million larks? Answer in a few weeks.

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