Keanu Reeves' Struggle in John Wick: Vomiting Every Day

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John Wick is one of the iconic characters played by Keanu Reeves and has earned a special place for action movie lovers. He has been playing the role for a decade since 2014 and will return again in Ballerina which airs next year.

Keanu sacrificed many things to be able to perform optimally where he devoted entirely to making the film which turned out to make him sick.

During the 10th anniversary of the film in Los Angeles, Keanu Reeves finally shared his complaints during filming as reported by Entertainment Weekly, Tuesday (5/11/2024).

“Every day is like a blessing. I had so many amazing teachers and supervisors and worked with so many talented actors, stuntmen who put their touch on the dance moves and how to incorporate them. Yes there were moments where I had to vomit or whatever, but that's what made it good,” she recalls.

It was this sacrifice that probably made her choose to retire from the role and be 'killed off' in John Wick: Chapter 4. However, director Chad Stahelski leaked that Keanu will return as Baba Yaga in their latest spin off film Ballerina with Ana de Armas.

“We have some things coming up, some surprising, some not,” Stahelski said.

“We have a documentary coming out about the making of all of John Wicks.”

Previously, Basil Iwanyk had also revealed Keanu Reeves' request to end the character in their fourth film.

He said that when entering the production stage of John Wick: Chapter 4, Keanu Reeves requested that his character be killed off at the end of the movie so that he could relax a little and no longer need to appear as the hitman. So was this request fulfilled? Considering John Wick is a very successful franchise in action movies?

“After the second, third and fourth (movies), making this movie was really exhausting and it took a huge toll on Keanu physically and emotionally. At the end (of the movie) he always says, 'I can't do this anymore,' and we agree with him.”

“He was like, 'I want to be killed off at the end of this movie'. And we said, 'You know, we're going to leave a small 10% chance (for spin-offs and follow-up movies)',” he told Collider.

The John Wick franchise, which now includes four films and a streaming series spin-off, has proven to be a financial juggernaut and critical darling. But it was far from secure when the movie went into production in 2014.

John Wick ended up making USD 86 million or around Rp 1.3 trillion on a budget of between USD 20-30 million. Each successive sequel also made huge profits, with John Wick: Chapter 4 earning the most USD 440 million or IDR 6.87 trillion on a budget of USD 100 million or IDR 1.56 trillion.