John Wick: Chapter 4 is reportedly the longest instalment in the action series. The upcoming Keanu Reeves-led globe-trotting hitman adventure will clock in at 2 hours and 49 minutes with credits, as per a report. This runtime makes the film nearly 20 minutes longer than 2019’s John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, whose ending saw our titular assassin getting betrayed by the High Table. The news comes as part of “Wick Week,” a marketing event, where instead of a Super Bowl game day commercial, Lionsgate will push out exclusive reveals per day, over the following five days. John Wick: Chapter 4 is slated to release March 24 in theatres worldwide.
“I’ve had people who I trust and know say, ‘Well, it’s too long. Cut 20 minutes out.’ And you’re like, ‘Okay, that’s your feeling, that’s your opinion,’” director Chad Stahelski told Collider last year. “I mean, we wrote a longer movie. We wrote a bigger movie. We wrote a longer script. We wrote at least a third more scenes than the last one. We expect it to be more.” The John Wick films have progressively gotten longer since the original 2014 movie, which ran at a tight 101 minutes. Its follow-up had a runtime of 122 minutes, whereas John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum clocked in at 131 minutes. As for what John Wick: Chapter 4’s longer runtime entails, lead Reeves has promised the ‘most action’ compared to other movies in the franchise, including a ‘car-fu’ segment. “There’s 180s, forward-into-reverse 180s, reverse into-forward 270s, drifting… So it was really fun to get a chance to learn those skills, and to play,” Reeves said in an interview, last month.
Serving as a direct sequel, John Wick: Chapter 4 sees our titular hitman partnering with Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) in hopes of toppling the High Table organisation that previously betrayed him. However, challenging those authorities will require him to be a member of the organisation — unspooling a web of secrets related to his parents’ involvement in the assassin world. The upcoming film has the added responsibility of introducing Bill Skarsgård’s Marquis de Gramont, a high-ranking member of the council and the thorn in Wick’s quest for revenge. In an interview, Stahelski alluded that while Marquis isn’t exactly an antagonist, he will be in charge of “cleaning up all the messes from the first three movies.” Think of it like resetting the John Wick calendar. As for what implications it has for the franchise’s future, remains to be seen.
Rounding out the cast for John Wick 4 are Ian McShane’s crime lord Winston, Lance Reddick as the Continental Hotel concierge Charon, Hiroyuki Sanada (Bullet Train), musician-turned-actress Rina Sawayama, Shamier Anderson (Stowaway), Scott Adkins (Dead Reckoning), and Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption). The Continental, a John Wick spin-off prequel series is also in development at Lionsgate, exploring the origins and the inner workings of the exclusive assassin-only residence.
John Wick: Chapter 4 hits theatres worldwide on March 24.
