How John Wick Went From a Low Budget Indie Movie to a Mega Action Franchise

It has taken less than 12 years for Keanu Reeves and longtime stunt partner Chad Stahelski to not only turn John Wick into a bonafide action icon, but the duo have also completely flipped the genre on its head. If you look at the landscape of action movies over the last 20 to 25 years, there is a clear distinction between the "Before Wick" and "After Wick" eras. Everybody has tried to copy the Wick formula since 2014 and, while a couple have had some success, most new action flicks simply feel like knock-offs (even the ones helmed by original John Wick producer David Leitch).

The thing about John Wick, though, is that its excellence resides in its simplicity. The original movie was simply a little independent action-thriller made for less than $30 million — it was just executed to perfection. While the copycats have tried to use the neon underworld trappings as the inspiration for its production design, or attempted to build out a mysterious universe of killers and secrets, they have largely missed out on what took John Wick from an indie shoot-em-up to the most popular action IP on the planet.

John Wick Always Sticks to the Basics

There are a lot of relentlessly cool elements to John Wick as a whole, and it is easy for anyone to get lost in them. The films are dripping with style and unforgettable characters, all within a seemingly infinite universe of assassin lore that only gets more intriguing as you peel back the layers. Those are the exact things that other filmmakers try to replicate, but they often put too much focus on those elements and not nearly enough on the cornerstone of John Wick's greatness: putting the action first.

Stahelski and Reeves worked together for decades before bringing John Wick to life, with the former serving as a stunt double and coordinator for the latter. When they reunited for John Wick, the notion was to make a movie where the action was second-to-none, and the purity of the craft was kept as the biggest focus. With the action itself taking center stage, the other pieces fell into place accordingly. It actually worked out in John Wick's favor that there wasn't an emphasis on any kind of bigger story, so each little piece of world-building that was necessary to move along the plot of that film ended up being shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Locking in on the physical performance made every other element better, because Stahelski, Reeves, and everyone else involved knew that getting that single element right would be the biggest difference-maker.

John Wick Got the Sequels Right

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the John Wick franchise is that those leading it never lost sight of what these films were supposed to be. So often sequels get bogged down by the success of their predecessors. A movie will do really well, the studio will grant a much bigger budget for the sequel, and in trying to top the first film, that sequel will fall apart. Thankfully, John Wick didn't fall into the sequel trap.

There are some bigger set pieces in the John Wick sequels, and more actors are brought in to expand the overall universe of the assassins, but never once have those movies abandoned the "action first" rule that the original adhered to so strictly. The story of John Wick flows so well between the films because they've never been in competition. There is no trying to beat what was done before. The creative team is simply unveiling a new chapter each time, trying to maintain the high level of quality that kicked off the entire franchise.

The result is a series of movies that has been steadily adored by both critics and fans, all while continuing to make more money each time out. Every Keanu Reeves John Wick movie has made more than the last, with John Wick: Chapter 4 bringing in over $447 million at the global box office. That increase can also be seen in the review scores of the films. The first John Wick carries an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes, while the second and third editions have an 89%, and Chapter 4 tops them all with a 94%.

It would've been easy for John Wick to turn into a major cash-grab franchise after that first movie, but Stahelski, Reeves, and their co-creators cared too much about the movement they were starting to let that happen. Now, 11 years later, every action movie wants to be John Wick — but there's only one Baba Yaga.