How did Keanu Reeves become John Wick?

The producer of the ‘John Wick’ saga has published a book about the ins and outs of the franchise, ‘His Dog Shouldn’t Have Been Killed: The Complete Uncensored Oral History of John Wick, Gun Fu, and the New Age of Action‘, in which he reveals, among other things, thatThe character was 75 years old in the original script. and it was intended for an actor like Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford… Until Keanu Reeves read it.

Basil Iwanykthe author of the book, tells the story as follows: “One of my best friends is Charlie Ferraro, who sent me this script by Derek Kolstad called ‘Scorn‘” Iwanyk says in the book (via Entertainment Weekly). “The protagonist was a 75-year-old man, 25 years after he retired. It was fun watching Clint Eastwood kick some butt. I thought: ‘Okay, There’s probably one or two names you could do this with: Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford‘”.

“My other best friend in the world, Jimmy Darmody, who is a CAA agent, was representing Keanu at the time,” Iwanyk continues. “And he said: ‘Do you have any action movies for Keanu Reeves?’ I remember thinking to myself: ‘Keanu is one of the great stars of the best action movies of the 21st century, what happened to him? What have you been doing? And he was directing his movie, ‘Man of Tai Chi,’ and doing ’47 Ronin.’ We give him the script and we say: ‘Clearly, you are not 75 years old’”.

Reeves says in the book that he immediately knew ‘John Wick’ would be “a great collaboration,” adding, “We all agreed on the potential of the project. You have this character from John Wick, but you also have the real world and at the same time this kind of underworld.. This den of thieves who have this honor and a code. Has this emotional connection with John Wick, who is grieving, who has lost the love of his life and has this mythical dark past. And I loved the quest he goes on to get his life back. And the world through which he moves to do it.”

According to screenwriter Kolstad, it was Reeves himself “who put his claws into the script and made it his own.” The actor of ‘The Matrix’ loved the script so much that he revised the character to play it.

“I spent two months at Keanu’s house on the weekends working on the script.”, says Kolstad in the book. “When I went and met him for the first time and walked into his house, and when he came around the corner to greet me (it’s a nice house, not flashy for a guy worth, I don’t know, billions), and I look in your office, I see that he has 300 scripts stacked on his deskbecause he reads everything sent by UTA, WME, William Morris… read them all.”

Kolstad continued: “He read the script on a Friday, at 90 minutes, and said, ‘I want to do it.’ At that point, before I met him and really clicked with him, I was like, ‘Yeah, I really want to do it too. The first thing Keanu said to me was: ‘Okay, Derek, I’m going to make it 35′. And I could only affirm, ‘Well‘”.

Keanu Reeves will return to play the action hero in ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’, which will be released on March 23, 2023.