John Wick returns for an explosive new adventure targeting the High Table in John Wick: Chapter 4. Picking up after the events of Parabellum, John Wick has found a new path to follow straight to the High Table leadership in the hopes of gaining his freedom. However, when a dangerous new individual, the Marquis Vincent de Gramont, is sent by the High Table to stop the Baba Yaga, old friends become foes.

Chad Stahelski, who has been instrumental in crafting the world of John Wick, has now directed all four installments of the franchise. John Wick: Chapter 4 is led by returning stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick, and Ian McShane, with new additions to the universe including Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, and Clancy Brown. John Wick continues to evolve with four movies, a spin-off prequel series, The Continental, and a spin-off movie, Ballerina.

Screen Rant spoke with director Chad Stahelski about John Wick Chapter 4. He explained why it is important to step away from the John Wick world between movies and revealed the Bowery King was meant to be a small part in John Wick 2. Stahelski also shares how Donnie Yen got involved and how much he influenced his character, Caine.

Chad Stahelski on John Wick: Chapter 4

john wick chapter 4 keanu reeves walking away from smoke

Screen Rant: John Wick is one of the only film franchises that gets better with every single movie. It is incredible how you outdo yourself every single time. 87eleven is phenomenal with the action you produce. How do you guys up the ante every single time you step back into a John Wick project, while still making the action feel very raw?

Chad Stahelski: If you talk to anybody in the creative field, it's the same thing. The quirky answer of it all is we just take a break. You get better through really pushing yourself, you take a little break, you go see life in a different perspective. You take all that input, you turn it on, you come out something else. It's constantly growing, but if you're always working, you can't take that breath. So after each Wick, we take a little breath, and it's more exploratory.

Me and my stunt team we go back to the gym, we start working on it, and we just have fun. And then somebody will come up with the idea, we'll get on YouTube, or we start meeting all our other stunt martial art friends, and we're like, "Oh, sambo or capoeira, or let's use combat tomahawk." So it's just about research and fun. So you've got to go on the playground a little bit. When you're working all the time, there's no time for playground. So it's about achieving what you've already set out to you. But afterward, you got to take a breath and go explore and that's how we get the fresh ideas.

Part of what makes the John Wick franchise stand out among many other action franchises is the world-building. It's absolutely incredible seeing that world develop. What's been the most surprising part about the process? Because I know that we have the expansions of the Ballerina and The Continental.

Chad Stahelski: I think for Keanu and I, the most surprising this is that we're still interested in it. I know it sounds weird to say, but if you can watch your own movie after the hundreds and thousands of times you've watched it and still have more - there's always disappointment. There's always the, I wish I coulda, woulda, shoulda... If you can still say to yourself, "Next time, I'll do better."

That gives you a little bit of hope because you still have interests. The Bowery King was supposed to be this small little thing in the second one, and we enjoyed it so much that we all our ideas kept coming. Let's keep riffing. Let's let's use the Bowery King. And that's always fun when you can still continually expand your own ideas. I think that's interesting.

Donnie Yen stole every scene for me, Caine is fantastic. He's amazing. Can you talk about working with Donnie? He brought so much to that role, and he feels so lived in already with that friendship that he had with Keanu's character John Wick.

Chad Stahelski: I had never worked with Donnie before, but I forever have been a big fan. So we managed to call Donnie up, and I got a Zoom call with him. And he had said he was a fan of the franchise. But he was also a little hesitant to see what's in store. What's a number four we're going to do? Are we going to put the same love into number four? And he had a lot of ideas about the character because we'd given them the treatment to read.

And he came out he's like, "Look, I'm interested. I just don't know what I'm exactly interested in. It's a great world, but how do you see me fitting in? I come from the Hong Kong world" We had a lot of the same friends from Yuen Woo-ping from all The Matrix experience, we had the same some teams. And Donnie goes "Well, okay, I have a different take on the character." And he kind of gave it to me, "Look, I don't want to do this, I want to do this." And he had a lot of thoughts on it, which is great.

You could tell he was very vested into our John Wick world, and he really took it to a whole nother level. And just the fact that he cared so much and put so much thought into it. I knew it was a good match. And luckily everything worked out. He came at it from a whole different [angle], even from myself, it was a different take on the character. You could see him saying it and he sent me this picture of Bruce Lee in this original suit with the skinny tie. And he's like, "this is what I think" and I was like, "Oh, that's awesome."

About John Wick: Chapter 4

Following the events of Parabellum, John Wick has found a new path to defeating the High Table and is taking the fight to them. But before he can try to earn his freedom, a powerful new enemy will turn even more people against Wick, including one of his oldest and most dangerous friends.

Check out our other John Wick: Chapter 4 interviews here:

Next: John Wick 4's Surprising Story Sets Up A Fifth Movie