‘John Wick 2’ Director Explains How They Pulled Off Its Most Expensive…

On a budget of $40 million, John Wick: Chapter 2 director Chad Stahelski and team brought all of the explosive action to life with style, flair, and impact. But without full blockbuster finances, the team had to get creative to stay within budget and still produce a film fans would love. There was one scene in particular that proved a challenge to pull off financially but Stahelski insisted remain in the film.

Sitting down with CinemaBlend, the director talked about bringing the “House of Mirrors” scene to life and how it took a team effort to pull off.

The most expensive thing in John Wick 2 was that I wanted to do the mirror room sequence. I really wanted to do something like that. The first time I set that out, the production designer said, ‘Do you need that?’ I said, ‘Yeah. It’s an awesome idea. How are we going to do it? We have to figure out how to do it.’ And the first blueprints come back, and it’s a $1.5 million set piece. In our model, that wasn’t going to work! So do you scrap the idea? No. Do you build a $250,000 version? Well, no, because then it’s two mirrors on a wall. But there’s a big gap between a quarter of a million and a million-and-a-half.

It was only by working with his crew that Stahelski and co. were able to bring the director’s vision to life.

If you can find a great creative idea, it’s up to me and hopefully a really good crew to figure out ‘Can we make this work for a price that is beneficial to the overall project?’ Or, ‘Am I willing to sacrifice something for X to get Y?’ So that’s where the genius of the crew comes in. You can find a crew that can get your vision out and still not hurt the rest of the movie. You can’t just be the director, ‘I want! I want! I want!’ and then you sacrifice a whole second act.

Directed by Chad Stahelski, the film stars Keanu Reeves, Common, Laurence Fishburne, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose, John Leguizamo, and Ian McShane.

John Wick: Chapter 2 is now available on Digital HD, 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD.

Source: CinemaBlend