John Wick: Chapter 4 was influenced by the cult classic The Warriors, according to director Chad Stahelski.
The film has already been hailed as one of the greatest action films of all time by critics, and has been a smash hit with fans to boot. Now, the creative force behind Keanu Reeves has been discussing some of the influences that helped to make the movie.
Sitting down to talk with CBR.com recently, Stahelski said that films like Walter Hill’s 1979 movie The Warriors helped to influence the fourth Wick film. “In my teenage years, I saw The Warriors. I thought it was the coolest thing ever – all the gangs, like the Baseball Furies. It just sunk back in the back of my head.”
Stahelski went on to say that a particular scene from Hill’s film allowed him to come up with a way to get music he wanted to feature in the film into the script. It turns out, that having a “beautiful radio DJ” playing bangers and reading out tips was also the perfect way to pay homage to The Warriors.
“We were writing the John Wick: Chapter 4 script,” Stahelski explained. “We needed a way to consolidate all the different things. We always have that battle royale at the end of the John Wick films. I’ve never been able to do as much music as I want to [in these films].”
Stahelski continued: “So, how do I make it not so goofy and do a needle drop? Then we scouted Paris. We saw the Eiffel Tower, and I’m like, ‘What if there’s a radio station there?’
“And I’m like, ‘We’ll have a DJ. And then we’ll paint it black and get some cool tunes in there. And we’ll have this, you know, beautiful DJ doing all this stuff’ – and we met Luce who’s a great pop star – so we cast her in that [role], and that was a great way to get music in and pay tribute to something I really, really loved as a kid.”