JOHN WICK Originally Centered on a 75-Year-Old Man Before Keanu Reeves Got Ahold of the Script

The John Wick film franchise has been so much fun to watch over the years and Keanu Reeves is freakin’ awesome in the lead role. But, it’s been revealed that the original version of the character was a 75-year-old man! It was originally written for an actor like Harrison Ford or Clint Eastwood, but when Reeves got ahold of the script, he ended up making it his own.

This information comes from a book written by franchise producer Basil Iwanyk titled They Shouldn’t Have Killed His Dog: The Complete Uncensored Ass-Kicking Oral History of John Wick, Gun Fu, and the New Age of Action. Lwanyk confirmed in the book via Entertainment Weekly:

“One of my best friends is Charlie Ferraro at UTA, who sent me this script from Derek Kolstad called ‘Scorn’. The lead was a 75-year-old man, 25 years after being retired. It was the fun of watching Clint Eastwood kick ass. 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, this guy Jimmy Darmody, is an agent at CAA, who at the time represented Keanu. And he said, ‘Do you have any action movies for Keanu Reeves?’ I remember thinking to myself, ‘Keanu is one of the great action stars of the last 25 years — what happened to him? What’s he been doing?’ And he was directing his movie, ‘Man of Tai Chi,’ and doing ’47 Ronin.’ We give him the script, we tell him, ‘Clearly, you’re not 75.'”

When Reeves got the script, he says in the book that he knew John Wick would be “such a great collaboration,” and added:

“We all agreed on the potential of the project. It has this character of John Wick, but then you also have the real world, and at the same time this kind of underworld. This den of thieves that have this honor and a code. It has this emotional connection with John Wick, who’s grieving, who’s lost the love of his life and has this mythical dark past. And I loved the quest that he goes on to reclaim his life. And the world he moves through to do it.”

Screenwriter Derek Kolstad, added that it was Reeves himself “who got his talons into [the script] and made it his own.” He loved the script and the character so much that he reimagined the character and turned him into something that he could play. The writer goes on to say:

“I spent two months at Keanu’s house on the weekends working on the script. When I first went and met with him and walked into his house, and as he rounded the corner to say hello to me — it’s a nice house, it’s not ostentatious for a guy who’s worth, I dunno, billions — and I look in his office, I see he has 300 screenplays stacked on his desk, because he reads everything that UTA, WME, William Morris sends out. He reads them all.

“He read [the script] on a Friday, in 90 minutes, and was like, ‘I want to do it.’ In that moment, before I met and really clicked with him, I was like, ‘Yeah, I really want to do it, too.’ The first thing that Keanu said to me was, ‘Okay, Derek, I’m going to play him 35.’ And I’m like, ‘Fine.'”

I love that Reeves took such a hands on approach to developing this film. The John Wick character really is perfect for him and it’s so cool that the franchise has been as succeful as it has. Who knows, maybe one day, years from now, we will get to see Reeves play a 75-year-old version of John Wick! If the franchise keeps going strong, it could happen!

In the meanwhile, Reeves will return as John Wick in John Wick: Chapter 4, opening in theaters on March 23, 2023.