John Wick 2 Almost Included An Estranged Child, But The Filmmakers Rightfully Realized It Was A Big Cliche
As is true of many great stories, the success of "John Wick" began with pure passion: longtime screenwriter Derek Kolstad put his love of action cinema to paper and wrote the script, which eventually found its way into the hands of Keanu Reeves, who passed it onto veteran stunt coordinators David Leitch and Chad Stahelski. I'd say the rest is history, but there's much more to the story — because in the wake of the first "John Wick" film's wild success, a sequel was destined to follow. And that was an unexpected challenge.
"John Wick" wasn't meant to have a sequel. In fact, there was a pretty significant period where the film, originally titled "Scorn," was expected to go straight to VOD, where it may have languished in obscurity. Instead, it performed so well both at the box office and in digital sales that the team was approached about making a sequel.
"We just made a movie that we thought we wanted to see," Stahelski said during a 2017 chat with Screen Junkies. "A little genre thing." They were thrilled to have pulled the movie off at all and certainly didn't expect another to follow. Both he and Leitch moved on to second-unit jobs after wrapping on the film, thinking, "'That was a good go, let's continue on with our day jobs.'"
Fast forward to nearly a decade later and there are now four "John Wick" movies, with a spin-off movie and miniseries both on the way. A short promo cycle and a small public profile did not hold the first film back: it won over audiences and critics alike, earning its place in the action movie pantheon. All of which meant that the sequel had a lot to live up to.
Finding the perfect sequel story was a struggle
Within months of the first film's release, Stahelski, Leitch, Kostad, and co. began developing what would eventually become "John Wick: Chapter Two" — a more than worthy sequel. The second film is a stunning continuation of Wick's saga that stays true to the brutal heart of the original, dodges tired action tropes, expands the fascinating criminal underworld, and organically moves his arc forward without rehashing the plot of the original. Also, it totally redefined what one could do with a well-sharpened pencil (assuming you have John Wick's skillset)!
So how exactly did they pull that off? Well. First, they burned through a lot of bad ideas.
"We wanted to go back," Stahelski told Screen Junkies. "We love the world, we love working with Keanu, we love our crew, we love the action." Motivation wasn't the problem. Stahelski and Leitch were thrilled to keep going but knew that they needed to do the first movie justice. They needed something "familiar but original."
"So how do you be original when everyone's already seen it?" Stahelski pondered. The way they saw it, they had two options: "You can go bigger, better, faster, stronger and you can go deeper ... Or you can just remake the movie again." Repeating themselves was out of the question so really, their minds were already made up: "Bigger, better, faster is always the best. So we'll go a little bigger and a little deeper into the world."
John Wick's daughter didn't make the cut
It was months before they settled on a solid idea and among the early contenders was John Wick rescuing a young girl. Yes, the former assassin almost got his own lone wolf and cub story! In the same chat with Screen Junkies, Stahelski mentions a version where Wick "had a daughter."
Plenty of other ideas were on the table too: like giving Wick a new love interest to protect or have taken from him. They even considered killing off Winston to motivate his vengeance. But none of that felt quite right. They ultimately decided that there was no point trying to recreate the dynamic of the first film because it just wouldn't hit as hard.
Leitch explained that the greatest challenge would be finding an "emotional buy-in that was ever gonna be stronger than what we [already] created." No amount of murdered love interests or convenient long-lost daughters could ever fill the void of Daisy! Or, in Stalhelski's words: "You only get one puppy a career."
John already got his epic tragedy: a husband mourns his wife, clings to a puppy, then loses that too. Throwing in a surprise estranged daughter would no doubt evoke a million eye rolls — it's a cheap pivot that would leave them reliant on an old action movie cliché. So they dodged that bullet and went in a different (and much more rewarding) direction.
"John Wick: Chapter Two" reveals that coming out of retirement had some unexpected consequences for John. He put himself back on the radar of Santino D'Antonio, the Italian mafia boss to whom he owed a favor. Simply walking away was no longer an option, a lesson that John spends the rest of the franchise learning. With each movie, he just digs himself in deeper. And that's what keeps the propulsive, franchise going: the "John Wick" movies are always looking forward.