Keanu Reeves and Chad Stahelski Break Down the Incredible Oner in ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’

[Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4]If there’s one scene you’ll hear about in the coming weeks, is the aerial continuous take that results in one of the best action sequences in the whole John Wick franchise — which will probably also be featured in best-scenes-of-the-year lists. In the one-take scene (also known as “oner”), Keanu Reeves moves through several rooms in an apartment building while firing a “dragon’s breath” shotgun that sets people on fire. The scene plays out like a video game, and it’s impossible not to get hyped up with it.

During an interview with Collider, our own Editor-in-Chief Steve Weintraub couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to talk about that scene, and he asked director Chad Stahelksi and John Wick himself Keanu Reeves all about it. The duo revealed that the plan was always to amp up the third act in John Wick: Chapter Four, and when it came down to it, it was just a matter of deciding how the action sequences would differ from one another.

“[W]e just thought, well, we trade off so much with the video game world, and we like so much of Asian cinema, so we wanna do a top shot. But it was, you know, most people don’t do the top shots because you just look down at the floor and there’s not a whole lot there. It’s a black carpet or something. So we started talking to the production designers and Dan [Laustsen] the cinematographer about how do we make this interesting, how to make it fun? And then we were doing our rabbit hole dive on all our weaponry and martial arts choreography and we forgot that we were gonna use the dragon’s breath somewhere else in the movie. But we saw that, you know, from a top view, it had that beautiful muzzle flash and guys on fire. And we were like, ‘Ok we’ll just paint the picture and rather than practical lighting, we’ll do it with stunt guys on fire.’ And Dan was really excited about that. We’re gonna light the set with people on fire and the dragon’s breath and give it that surreal kind of anime look.”

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Choreography, One Take, Imagination, and Keanu

Reeves joined the conversation and revealed that, to make filming the scene even more difficult, he had to deal with things that would only be there in post-production. So, on top of learning all his moves and being able to do all the choreography in one take, the actor also had to make sure he was looking in the right direction and reacting properly to things only the public would get to see:

“Because of the way that we use rounds, the technology, they’re all plug guns, so nothing actually comes out of the barrel. So I don’t get to see all that fire. It’s all kind of post [production] fire. I get to hear the sound and get to see the shells eject. And yeah, so I get that little pop, pop, pop, but I don’t get to see any. I saw some people on fire. […] I had to do all the choreography. Someone would count out loud because the sequence needed to sync with the camera on its fly system. So it was like ‘1, 2,’ and you’re like ‘3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.’ And that would be the end of the take.”

John Wick: Chapter 4 follows the title character as he makes his way across the world in order to find a loophole in the High Table’s rules that allows him to challenge a member to a duel. The cast also features Rina Sawayama, Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne, Bill Skarsgard, Donnie Yen, Shamier Anderson, Natalia Tena, Hiroyuki Sanada, and the late Lance Reddick.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is in theaters everywhere now. For more from our interview with Reeves and Stahelski, watch our exclusive interview below. It’s filled with tons of behind-the-scenes stories.