John Wick: Chapter 2 is a 2017 American neo-noir action thriller film directed by Chad Stahelski and written by Derek Kolstad. A sequel to the 2014 film John Wick, the plot follows hitman John Wick, who goes on the run after a bounty is placed on his head. It stars Keanu Reeves, Common, Laurence Fishburne, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose, John Leguizamo and Ian McShane, and marks the first collaboration between Reeves and Fishburne since appearing together in The Matrix trilogy.
- Keanu performs about 95% of the fight scenes himself. The only stunts that he doesn’t do are the ones in which John Wick gets hit by a car.
- This film’s director was a stunt man in the Matrix trilogy, in which Keanu Reeves played the main character.
- John Wick is intended to be a trilogy, this film being the second in that trilogy.
- This will be the first time Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves worked together since The Matrix Revolutions (2003).
- The Australian distributor, Entertainment One, or EOne, planned on not giving the film a theatrical release and considered sending it straight to DVD. When news broke that the distributor was going to offload the film straight onto the home entertainment market, EOne’s facebook, twitter and website were bombarded with emails and notes from angry fans demanding the film be given a proper theatrical release in Australia. Shortly afterwards, EOne announced a nation wide rollout on April 20th, 2017.
- The DJ performing at the party in Rome is “Le Castle Vania” who wrote music for both John Wick movies.
- To prepare for the role, Keanu trained for three months. His training consisted of Judo, Jujutsu, guns, and driving.
- Director Chad Stahelski was Keanu Reeves’ stunt double in the Matrix trilogy.
- John Wick (Keanu Reeves) says to the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) “So I guess you have a choice.” This phrase, or variations of it, was a constant theme of these actors’ previous collaboration, the Matrix Trilogy (1999-2003).
- This will be the fourth time Peter Stomare and Keanu Reeves work together after Constantine (2005), Το σχέδιο του Χένρι (2010) and Swedish Dicks (2016)
- Ruby Rose’s character Ares is never actually referred to by name in the film. Her name is only revealed in the credits to be Ares, though it also appears next to a photograph of her earlier in the film, in the Bowery’s headquarters.
- Keanu Reeves and Common also appeared as enemies in Η εξουσία της νύχτας (2008).
- Despite the number of kills and public gunfights, there was no cops seen throughout the film besides Jimmy, who happens to be the only cop in the first film too.
- Director Chad Stahelski and co-director of the first film David Leitch mentioned in Screen Junkies interview how there were several different story ideas for John Wick 2, including ones which would have him saving his daughter or some love interest.
- The Kimber 1911 that was given to John Wick could have also been supplied with a magazine of 8 rounds of .45 ACP instead of 7. Magazine design for modern 1911s can vary the load out based on the model of the magazine provided.
- There are multiple references to the co-op action game “Payday 2”, such as a scene where the Payday Clown’s masks are seen as graffiti on a wall. The final contract’s number, 1111111, was also a slight nod to an inside joke of the Payday 2 community. In the game, John Wick appears as a playable character. When he was first released, he only had one line for when he collected a bag of loot, that line being “ONE!” this line would go on to become a joke among fans of the game as well as turn into a mod that replaced all of John Wick’s lines with “ONE!”.
- This isn’t the first movie where Common plays a contract killer. He also plays one in Run All Night (2015).
- This film marks the third sequel appearance over the course of three months for actress Ruby Rose, who also co-starred in “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” (December 2016) and “xXx: The Return of Xander Cage” (January 2016).
- Screenwriter Kyle Ward polished the final screenplay.
- Screenwriter Derek Kolstad previously wrote the film The Package (2013), in which the name of the main character was Tommy Wick. In 2014 he also wrote a short film entitled The Forge: Subject Aries (2014). In John Wick: Chapter Two, Ruby Rose’s character is named Ares.
