John Wick’s producer talks making the movie independently and how it almost went straight-to-video

Last Updated on November 21, 2023

John Wick was a little movie that could. If you go back and watch the trailer to the first film, it has a dated, almost anachronistic look to it. Flash forward to today with three sequels, a prequel show, a spin-off film later, and more on the way, we’re knee-deep in a new franchise with its own lore and population of characters that can tell their own stories. John Wick‘s producer, Basil Iwanyk, speaks with Above the Line about the hardships of making the series without big studio money behind it. John Wick: Chapter 4 ushered the franchise into the billion-dollar club, but the first almost went straight-to-video.

Iwanyk talks about his initial intention was with the series as he stated, “Honestly, I just wanted to make an independent movie that was cool. We made the movie without a studio, with nobody. Purely independent. I always said the creative team could fit around a small conference room table. It was Chad [Stahelski], Dave [Leitch], Derek Kolstad, [Producer] Erica [Lee], myself, and Keanu, of course. We deliver the same movie you’ve seen in the theaters, and we show it to every studio in town – every studio passed. I’m telling you, there wasn’t even a speck of ‘Could this start a franchise?’ In fact, right after we did John Wick, we did Sicario. and I remember thinking to myself, ‘Okay, John was gonna come out straight to video, but at least I have Sicario. It’s great. John Wick will be like a little blip.’ None of us had any idea. “

In an era of shared universes and nostalgic intellectual properties being rebooted and remade, Iwanyk reflects on how John Wick: Chapter 4‘s massive scope still pales in comparison to something like a Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible production. “I think that it terms of other franchises, by the time you get to three and four, our movies are shockingly cheaper than traditional movies that get to chapters three and four. When it’s all said and done, this came from an independent movie that was financed ourselves. Believe it or not, there’s still a feeling amongst all of us that we’re making an independent movie, that we’re scrappy, that we are getting away with it. That we are not part of the cool kids table, that we have to work a little harder than everybody else because we’re so odd, in terms of the craziness of it. We feel like underdogs.”