“We’re so screwed,” says director Chad Stahelski, as he finished his first installment of John Wick 4. Because it took three hours and 45 minutes. Editor Nathan Orloff then had the arduous job of cutting scenes: he watched the film over and over and “whenever someone came up with an idea that had already been expressed, I cut it out.” The film thus ended with a still impressive running time of two hours and 49 minutes.
But since the existence of the long version is known, there are some fans who would like to see it. But there is no publication. Of the first cut, Stahelski said, “It also felt like three hours and 45 minutes.” But now producer Erica Lee is more ruthless about this in court.
Do not hope for the long version of “John Wick 4”
In an interview with she explains that the three-hour, 45-minute version “was so boring at times” and concludes, “It wasn’t good.”
Therefore, fans should neither hope for a release nor be angry about it: “You didn’t miss anything!”
Fortunately, Lee, Stahelski, Orloff and their editing room team managed to create a version that’s still impressively long, but never feels that long in our opinion. You can still see it for yourself in the cinema.