John Wick 4’s Ending Almost Made It Clear Our Hero Wasn’t Dead

The film’s climax changed as well, aside from going with the more definitive death scene. Stahelski talked a bit about the final showdown between Donnie Yenn’s Caine and Keeves’ Wick. After Wick kills Bill Skarsgard’s Marquis, few words are exchanged. But in the original script, the scene was a bit more chatty. Circumstance dictated a change of plan, though one that was ultimately for the better. The filmmaker explained: 

“Donnie’s character comes up to him at the end and says, ‘Brother, thank you, I owe you, you owe me.’ There was a little bit more dialogue written, but we were running out of time and I had to get the shot. And then Donnie and Keanu had been talking, and it felt weird to do so much talking. Donnie was like, ‘I’m just gonna walk over to him and tell him, “Thanks,”‘ then Keanu’s like, ‘Why don’t I just say, “You owe me?”‘ We literally stripped out pages of dialogue. And Donnie just said, ‘Well, I’ll do John Wick’s thing of, ‘Yeah.’ It was so simple, so genius, and we just did it like that. Donnie doesn’t even say the last line we had written. He just goes, ‘Yeah,’ and walks away.”

John Wick was truly a man of few words, so it actually made sense for him to go out with an interaction that is light on dialogue but heavy with emotional weight. In the end, Stahelski was very happy with how it played it out.

“As a director, you’re always thinking about, ‘Are you gonna give a character a great send-off. Are you gonna give him his moment?’ And for Keanu to say, ‘Helen,’ and to go sleep, and we’ll let the audience decide what happens, that was pretty good. I think we did something good here.”