John Wick: Chapter 4 director Chad Stahelski explains how The Exorcist inspired the atmosphere of one of the film’s most iconic action scenes.
The following article contains minor spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4, in theaters now.
John Wick: Chapter 4 director Chad Stahelski says the iconic action sequence in which Keanu Reeves’ eponymous assassin fights his way up 270 steps was partially inspired by the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist.
Stahelski discussed what went into crafting the scene in question during a recent appearance on The Hollywood Reporter‘s Behind the Screen podcast. “We were [scouting] at the top of Sacré Cœur, the sun had just set. We looked down the stairs from the top, and went, ‘Oh, somebody’s going down this,'” he said. “[L]iterally we’re like, not only is he going down this, we’re gonna have John Wick fight his way up. We’re gonna throw him back down and then we’re gonna have him and Donnie [Yen’s] character Caine do the Butch and Sundance thing and get to the top… We’ll do the music and we’ll make it like a Western. We’ll have him fight all the way to the top and bond just so we can see who kills each other at the top.”
Stahelski further explained that he and cinematographer Dan Laustsen gave the scene a moody atmosphere akin to that of The Exorcist. The director says they used “as much practical lighting as we can from the lamp posts and [we] put our cranes up to get some fill in and try to work backwards from that with atmosphere.”
John Wick Goes Four for Four
Like the previous three entires in franchise, John Wick: Chapter 4 has proven to be a critical and commercial success. In fact, it’s the best-reviewed John Wick film thus far, currently holding a “Certified Fresh” rating of 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. John Wick: Chapter 4 also handily won the box office during its opening weekend, bringing in $74.5 million domestically. While the film came up short against the debuting Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves during its second weekend at the domestic box office, it has still topped $245 million worldwide.
Unsurprisingly, Chapter 4‘s box office success has led to renewed interest in a potential fifth main-series John Wick film among distributor Lionsgate. Plans for John Wick: Chapter 5 have been in flux for some time, though even if the film doesn’t go ahead anytime soon, the larger franchise is set to expand in the very near future. A 1970s-set John Wick prequel series titled The Continental is slated to premiere on Peacock this coming September, while a spinoff film titled Ballerina — set between the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and Chapter 4 — is expected to bow next year.
The Exorcist Is Back
In the meantime, The Exorcist is actually due for a big comeback this year. David Gordon Green, the director behind Blumhouse and Universal’s Halloween legacy trilogy, has re-teamed with the studios to helm an Exorcist legacy sequel. Green’s The Exorcist is slated to release in theaters on Oct. 13. Unconfirmed reports claim that Linda Blair will reprise her role as Regan MacNeil from the 1973 original. In any case, the new Exorcist film will differ from Green’s Halloween films in that while it will retroactively alter the franchise’s continuity, it will not outright ignore the sequels released in the interim.
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Based on the 1971 horror novel of the same name by the late William Peter Blatty, 1973’s The Exorcist was directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by Blatty himself. In addition to being considered one of the scariest movies ever made, The Exorcist was highly influential, with Cinefantastique Magazine stating that it did for horror what Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey did for sci-fi. The Exorcist spawned two sequels, The Exorcist II: The Heretic and The Exorcist III, which released in 1977 and 1990, respectively. Additionally, two prequel films, Exorcist: The Beginning and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, released in 2004 and 2005, respectively. A television series simply titled The Exorcist aired on Fox for two seasons from 2016 to 2017 as a direct sequel to the original 1973 film.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is in theaters now.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
