John Wick 3 is one of Keanu Reeves‘ greatest achievements — but director Chad Stahelski revealed that the actor couldn’t help but think he had “let everyone down” with the ending of the third John Wick movie.
In the third instalment of the John Wick series, Reeves returns as the titular character — who, this time, finds himself on the run from a legion of hitmen after a $14 million bounty is placed on his head. With an 89% consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, many critics consider John Wick 3 to be among Reeves’ best movies. In fact, of all the John Wick movies ranked, the third one very often comes out on top for fans and critics alike. But during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Stahelski revealed that Reeves was less than enthusiastic about how the action movie turned out.
“We did the third movie and then we were really done. We’re like, ‘We’re done.’ And then again, it was a year later, Keanu and I both felt like we kind of let everybody down with the ending of number 3,” the director explained.
In the final moments of John Wick 3, the titular character is betrayed by Winston (Ian McShane) in a shocking plot twist. Winston ends up gunning down Wick multiple times before he falls off the hotel roof.
Inexplicably, Wick ends up surviving this attack. He is taken in by the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), and ulimtately, the movie ends on a cliffhanger, with Wick vowing to get revenge against the High Table.
“I think [the ending] was well-received but it was kind of like, people really like John and they’re like, ‘What the fuck, guys? You know, that was an action ending, great. But okay, what the fuck? Tough talking mythology here and you didn’t really wrap it up,” Stahleski continued. “And we started talking more and more, and we just felt like we didn’t leave everything we had on the table.”
Stahleski had previously opened up about John Wick 3’s disappointing ending in an interview with Empire, recalling how he and Keanu discussed where John Wick would end up going next over a few Japanese whiskies.
“I said [to Reeves], ‘I’d be pissed if that’s how they ended the whole series. I’d be pissed at the director,’” Stahelski told the outlet. “And I had just read this treatise on samurai etiquette called Hagakure, the art of the way of dying”
“And we’re like, ‘Yeah, he’s got to die. And we got to come up with the coolest way to make the happen. We’ve got to make it all about, ‘You can only had a good death if you had a good life’. That’s the first line we wrote on a napkin in Japan, three years out. We wrote the movie backwards off that one thing.”
Now check out our John Wick 4 review or guide to the John Wick 4 ending. But if you can’t accept the fourth movie’s ending, and are anxious to hear more about new movies and TV series with the John Wick cast, check out our guides to the John Wick 5 release date.