It’s “John Wick: Chapter 4” weekend and it looks like its $9.5M in Thursday previews and strong word of mouth will catapult it to the top of this weekend’s box-office.
That’s right, Chad Stahelski’s ‘Chapter 4’ is set to open at around $77 million this weekend. A lot of conversation will result about that ending, so try to watch it before someone ruins it for you.
If I thought the first half of this latest chapter was alright, passable as it went, the last hour just blew me away. If you think this franchise had run out of things to say then wait until you watch the last 3 or 4 set-pieces in this one.
The 165 minute runtime was not needed. There’s a tightly-constructed and great movie hidden somewhere underneath the excess, but Reeves and Stahelski decided their movie should be close to 3 hours …
There are no pretensions, it’s all about checking your brain at the door and reveling in the “kills.” This sense of repetitiveness drained the third film into the same old same old, but the fact that this latest one ups its game with dazzling dare makes it a unique addition to the ‘Wick’ cannon.
The reviews have been very good. A 78 on Metacritic a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s being a tad overpraised by the fanboys, who are now critics, but what can you do.
Keanu is back, so are Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane and Lance Reddick. Director Chad Stahelski is also back in the fray working with a script co-written by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch.
Production began on June 28, 2021, in Berlin and Paris, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and wrapped on October 27, 2021.