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Warning: SPOILERS for John Wick: Chapter 4!
The director of John Wick: Chapter 4 has begun defending its long runtime against its critics. With John Wick striking against the High Table in a bid to earn his freedom and retirement, John Wick 4 is an action-packed crusade featuring numerous settings and characters. It is an epic film that needed space to tell its story.
Yet, while John Wick: 4 was almost longer, critics already were unsatisfied with the already-massive length. The discontent has come even after director Chad Stahelski cut more than an hour out of the movie just to make it slightly more palatable. In an interview with DiscussingFilm, Stahelski revealed exactly why he feels the backlash is overblown. Check out his quote below:
“Hold on, the movie is 2 hours and 38 minutes. Then there are 10 minutes of credits because we shot in five countries. So 10 almost 12 minutes of that runtime is credits. I have to stand up for my movie! These are the same people that will go and binge a whole season of television on a Sunday afternoon. I think myself and again, you have [Christopher] Nolan and [James] Cameron, like come on, really? Everybody goes out and watches three seasons of TV on a Sunday, or they will watch whole five episodes of Game of Thrones at night. And because you’re on your couch that makes it different? Yeah, but I also watch movies all over the world.
Literally, I agree with Cameron saying Americans are the only ones that are uncomfortable with getting up and taking a bathroom break. ‘I don’t want to get up so I have to hold it and now it’s way too long!’ Like, just stand up. I got something for you, for anyone watching John Wick: Chapter 4, after the water scene in the club, I did that to make you want to go to the bathroom. That’s a good time to go to the bathroom and come back, and you would be fine. All I have to say is: enjoy it.
It’s funny, you hear ‘We want more movies, we want the cinematic experience.’ I shot this movie to be seen on IMAX. That’s why you see the anamorphic lenses, the colors, we push the contrast, we push the size, we want you to enjoy the cinema! I’ve tried to go out of my way to make beautiful and interesting characters, so enjoy it. Sit back, eat your popcorn, and if you have to go to the bathroom, go to the bathroom.
I’m not on a mission to do a two-and-a-half-hour movie. We just wanted to expand the world, expand the characters, and we had a 135-page script. The original cut [of John Wick: Chapter 4] was 3 hours and 45 minutes – we cut an hour out! But we feel the movie we released is the best version of itself. We tried a 2-hour and 15-minute version, a 2-hour and 20-minute version, and a 2-hour and 10-minute version. And I just thought the movie was terrible in all of those. It didn’t land right, it didn’t emotionally sit right with me – it just felt weird. In the final version, I feel like I’m good. I feel like I’m satisfied. I feel like I got the action in. I challenge it back to the fans. ‘Okay everybody, be a director, what would you cut out? What bores you? Too much action? Not enough action?’. So I throw it back at the fans to just enjoy it.”
Why John Wick 4 Needed Such A Long Runtime
While the long runtime has been a point of critique, John Wick: Chapter 4 hasn’t exactly suffered for it. After all, John Wick 4‘s Rotten Tomatoes score is hovering in the mid-to-low 90s, which is a serious success, given that it is the first John Wick movie to top 90 for the site. Even if the runtime has been an issue, it hasn’t stopped critics from praising the project.
The various settings and new characters needed to be established before John Wick: Chapter 4 could really find its footing. With so many mainstays of John Wick‘s universe upended, including the existence of the Continental Hotel, there needed to be some character and world development that needed space and time to be properly depicted. Had the timeline been cut only slightly, the pace would have suffered, leaving the entire film feeling rushed. As an original property, John Wick: Chapter 4 can’t rely on future films or other adaptations to build its world the way it needs to.
While it is disappointing that it isn’t particularly easy to find time to go to the bathroom, a movie’s length shouldn’t suffer for that reason alone. Stahelski taking the opportunity to add a bathroom break to the movie certainly helps, though an intermission might have been a better signal to audiences. As it is, John Wick: Chapter 4 needed its runtime to ensure that it could get across everything that its universe needed in the time allotted.
Source: DiscussingFilm
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