Keanu Reeves' John Wick Rewrite Saved The Movie

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The changes made to John Wick by Keanu Reeves greatly helped both the film and its ongoing franchise. The action-heavy John Wick, packed with an array of martial arts, arrived as a surprise hit in 2014, and with two released sequels and a third on the way, the anti-hero played by Reeves has become one of the most enduring action movie characters of all time. However, before Reeves took on the role of John Wick, the legendary Baba Yaga was conceived with some significant differences.

When John Wick was originally scripted, John was written as 75 years old, having been a retired assassin for 25 years, and imagined in the vein of Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford. When Keanu Reeves boarded John Wick, he and screenwriter Derek Kolstad modified the script to make John roughly 35 years old. This change not only facilitated Keanu Reeves portraying John Wick, but it also helped John's story of dealing with grief significantly.

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In John Wick, the former assassin returns to the game after his dog is killed by a gang, which also comes on the heels of John's wife passing away. With John's much younger age compared to how he was initially written, his time in retirement was far shorter than the quarter century it had been penned as at first. Yet by making John a man in his mid-30s, Reeves and Kolstad's rewrite of John Wick made his return to his assassin life much more tragic and endearing as a result.

The first three John Wick movies all take place over a period of a few weeks or so, with John breaking out his weapons mastery again as his whole world is turned upside down by the chain of events set in motion by his vendetta for his murdered dog. The films also