It's a hard task to follow up a successful film and after JOHN WICK blew us all away and a sequel was announced, we were left hoping that JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO wouldn't wind up falling short. Sequels which are as good, or even better, as their predecessors do exist, but they're definitely a rare breed. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO director Chad Stahelski spoke with Collider recently about the difficulties of crafting a sequel to a film people loved.
The reason people love you so much sometimes is because you’re original. John Wick was an original twist on a classic tale, with a fancier look and a different way of telling the story. More like a Greek myth rather than your typical action movie. So you give away your whole hand with that, you give away originality. So how do you compete with yourself?
Eventually they decided to just stop competing with themselves as well as the pressures of living up to the first JOHN WICK by setting the sequel off in a new direction. Stahelski compared it to the approach which James Cameron took when he was tasked with crafting a sequel to Ridley Scott's ALIEN.
Once we stopped worrying about ourselves it was fun. I mean is it as good as the first one? I don’t know. Did we go better in some ways? Yes. Did we experiment with the characters more? Yes. Everything there is better. Is the enjoyment better? I think the enjoyment is there, but it’s different. All the other director friends I have don’t like doing sequels or don’t like doing other people’s sequels, which is even worse I think. But then there’s other examples. I think the best example is Ridley Scott. He did the first Alien. James Cameron created Aliens. Cameron, I think think is a genius for that. Going, “I’m not making the same Aliens again, I’m just gonna make it.” If I could be so bold as to take that similarity then so be it.
Chad Stahelski added that using "Chapter Two" in the title was a further attempt to differentiate it from the first film, likening it to "a chapter in a book. Where, if you pick up a book, you don’t have to read the beginning, you can just jump into a chapter." JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO is set for a February 10, 2017 release.