‘John Wick’ director compares the franchise to ‘The Lord of the Rings’

via Liongate

Vin Diesel came under heavy fire when he decided to compare himself to JRR Tolkien and accept comparisons between them Fast & Furious And Lord of the Ringsbut it doesn’t seem quite that far-fetched, though John Wick Director Chad Stahelski draws exactly the same parallels.

While The Fast Saga on the verge of becoming a full-fledged superhero series for years, it’s not a rousing fantasy fable like Peter Jackson’s legendary trilogy. On the other hand, Keanu Reeves’ sharp-suited assassin is embedded in an underworld full of mythological inspirations and their own built-in lore, making it much easier to connect the dots between the continent and Middle-earth.

Indeed during an interview with Rolling Stone where he pondered the legacy left by the incomparable Lance Reddick, Stahelski explained why he doesn’t find it John Wick be too different from Lord of the Ringsand it makes a lot more sense than it reasonably should.

“Lance’s DNA is everywhere in this film. You go back ten years and I’ll tell you what was going on back then: ‘Well, it’s about a retired assassin who got married, his wife dies of natural causes, he gets dragged back in because someone killed his puppy, and he will shoot 84 people in the head. And on top of that I’m going to put this weird Greek mythology on it, so it’s going to be like a modern day Lord of the rings.” We were turned away pretty much everywhere. We eventually had to make it independent and started casting.

Keanu was the one who hired me. I think Lance was probably the first actor we got. Me and Dave Leitch were big fans of his The cable and we also knew him from video games. We sit Lance down and pitch him: “Okay, we’ll call your character Charon. He’s going to be the guardian of this underworld, he’s going to have this whole hideout, and you’re going to do it The.” Lance takes off his glasses, puts them back on and says, “Great. Excellent. Maybe he has an African accent and does it The And The?” He got it right away.”

One of the greatest things about John Wick is that while every single character in the four films treats everything with the utmost seriousness and solemnity, it’s an over-the-top world filled with moments that just don’t happen in the real world. In the broadest sense, this clearly makes it a fantasy universe, even if we haven’t quite gotten to the point of magic and mysticism yet.