JOHN WICK Directors Say They Had to Fight Financiers of the First Film to Keep Keanu Reeves's Beard- The Team "Caught a Lot of Sh-t"

The creators of the John Wick film franchise had no idea how big the first film was going to be, or where the franchise would lead, but they certainly had a style and specificity in mind when they went into the filmmaking process.

Now, on the 10th anniversary of their action movie, directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch are celebrating the milestone by speaking to Business Insider about the various battles they had to overcome in order to launch the Keanu Reeves-led franchise. One of the most surprising arguments centered on the actor’s beard, as the financiers of John Wick preferred the star to be clean shaven like his famous looks in Point Break, Speed and The Matrix.

Stahelski said about the beard:

“Absolutely. We were trying to do a modern-day Greek mythology fantasy movie. That’s not mainstream. So we wanted to do something cool with Keanu. But the money people, they wanted to see Keanu fucking Reeves. ‘Point Break’ Keanu, ‘Speed’ Keanu.

“And I don’t know if this exists anymore, but at the time we were told by the powers that be you don’t cover up your leading man’s face with a beard.”

Leitch added:

“I don’t want to get into it, but since then I have had contentious conversations about stars having facial hair. ‘He needs to be clean-shaven for international!’ That’s the classic studio line.”

Stahelski said the team “caught a lot of shit” for refusing to have Reeves shave, a choice that stemmed from the filmmakers wanting people to view the character not as the Reeves action heroes they were familiar with from his previous movies. Stahelski remembered:

“We felt you can’t fire us, so first day of shooting, we had Keanu in the beard, and later that week, when they watched the dailies, with cinematographer Jonathan Sela’s now famous half-light shots, people fucking loved it.”

Reeves’ beard stayed and became one of the signature components of John Wick’s look. Another thing that stayed in the movie was the death of John’s dog, which kicks off the entire saga of the action franchise. Leitch said of the story decision:

“We were told, ‘It’s bad luck.’ ‘It’s bad juju.’ ‘It’s ‘Old Yeller,’ you can’t do this!’ ‘No one will want to see this on screen; you’re going to alienate the audience.'

And I’m like, ‘We’re going to execute people at close range; killing the dog is one thing, but what about the brutal massacre of all these human beings?

Are they going to be able to accept that?’ … They didn’t understand that we were making a genre movie. We are genre fans to the core, and we know those hard-boiled moments are what make memorable moments.”

Stahelski added:

“For the next couple of weeks it was suggested that we shoot an alternative ending revealing that the puppy actually isn’t dead. But Keanu stood up for us. … Eventually, they just felt, ‘Fuck it, let’s see what these guys can do.'”

My opinion is that I absolutely hate it when dogs die in movies. It almost always feels like a cheap ploy to make the audience upset. However, in the case of John Wick, it would have been crazy to have him go on the rampage he did, then get his dog back, and just say, “Oops?”.

I would have been happy about the dog, but it would have been kind of silly, and it would have stopped the franchise right there.

And I’m glad that they kept his beard.

via: Variety