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Keanu Reeves Responsible For Shockingly Shorter Lines in John Wick: Chapter 4


When it comes to actors doing their job, a little adjustment here and there tends to occur, especially when the actors themselves know more about the character than the screenplay intended for the film. In the case of John Wick: Chapter 4, Keanu Reeves' strong silent ‘retired’ assassin is taken to the extreme.

It's no secret that Wick's lack of speaking lines is one of the many things that made him even more intimidating apart from his history in the franchise. In fact, that's what earned his raging scene in the first film while he was cuffed to a chair.

Now, in John Wick: Chapter 4, while being the longest in the franchise at 2 hours and 49 minutes, The Wall Street Journal reports that Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski revealed that they had to drop nearly half of Wick's lines, which resulted in Wick speaking an overall total of only 380 words of dialogue.

In comparison to the previous films: 2014's John Wick may have only had a runtime of 1 hour and 41 minutes, which is evidently less than Chapter 4, however, even then, Reeves got to speak more words, a total of 484 actually.

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10% of those 380 words Keanu Reeves spoke in John Wick 4 were shown in the trailer. Wick's longest line in Chapter 4 appeared to be: “You and I left a good life behind a long time ago, my friend.” which was the line the titular character spoke to Hiroyuki Sanada's Shimazu Koji (the Osaka Continental Hotel's frontman).

While this is but a small detail from the entire John Wick 4's intense action sequences that audiences come to see, it speaks widely on what exactly makes the franchise work with its production team. Now, John Wick: Chapter 4 is on its way to become the highest box office record-breaker for the franchise since its weekend opening earned $73.5M with a current worldwide total of $138M.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is now in cinemas worldwide! Check out more information on this film here.


For more articles like this, take a look at our John Wick and Geek Culture page.