In 2016, I wrote concerning the novelist and screenwriter William Goldman, and his pleasant ebook, “Adventures within the Display screen Commerce.” He was an Academy award-winning scriptwriter penning such classics as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child” (1969), “All of the President’s Males” (1976), “Marathon Man” (1974), and the cult-favorite “The Princess Bride (1973).
He additionally penned the immortal phrase, “No person is aware of something.”
The origin of these three insightful phrases comes from Hollywood: Goldman references the numerous movies that studios handed on that will go on to be blockbusters. Each studio exec in Tinseltown (however one) turned down “Raiders of the Misplaced Ark.”1 All the biggest Hollywood studio honchos handed on “Star Wars.”2
Which brings us to “John Wick.”
The primary of the Keanu Reeves motion film was made for $20 million {dollars}. It was made as an unbiased movie as a result of not one of the studios had been : No person wished to finance it; as soon as it was financed, nobody wished to distribute it; even after a distribution deal was inked, nobody wished to indicate it or evaluate it.
But it surely virtually wasn’t made in any respect.
Watch Danny Boyd of CinemaStix’s video (above) concerning the challenges of constructing a flick a few retired hitman. Regardless of being connected to a bankable star, regardless of being related to the stuntmen and combat choreographers of the enormously profitable Matrix movies, and regardless of a virtually insatiable demand for motion motion pictures, everybody handed on the movie.
With the good thing about hindsight, all of this stuff are apparent to us: How might John Wick’s fashion of Hong Kong Gun Fu not be a smash hit? Not one of the studio heads had the imaginative and prescient to see its potential.
As a result of nobody in Hollywood is aware of something.
Kinda like Wall Avenue.
From CinemaStix’s dialogue above:
“We had been actually turned down by each studio that we went to. It’s Keanu Reeves being an murderer kills dozens of individuals over a pet and it’s directed by not one however two loopy stuff guys so yeah it wasn’t an incredible pitch.”
-Chad Stahelski & David Leitch, Co-Administrators
“However even after the film acquired made I imply that was removed from it. John Wick was nonetheless a few studio execs beguiled faces away from getting despatched straight to Blu-ray no one with any energy understood it no one with any cash wished to distribute it, and not one of the critics in early screenings for it might work out why they’ve by no means heard of it.”
-Danny Boyd, CinemaStix
No business potential?
Simply the field workplace for the primary movie, and its three sequels was billion {dollars}. John Wick 4, which got here out this summer time, did $432.2 million on the field workplace. Chapter 5 is confirmed, and heading to theaters in 2026, which you wouldn’t wish to guess in opposition to the field workplace of that one both. To say nothing of video video games, comedian books, tv sequence, and a spin-off movie from the unique. By the point it’s all mentioned and executed, the John Wick franchise can be price greater than 2 billion {dollars}. And it virtually wasn’t made as a result of not one of the studio heads might see the business potential within the movie.
John Wick is yet one more reminder about simply how little any of us learn about what may occur sooner or later…
Beforehand:
No person Is aware of Nuthin’ (Could 5, 2016)
Can Anybody Catch Nokia? (October 26, 2022)
Why the Apple Retailer Will Fail (Could 20, 2021)
“Regardless of how you narrow it, you’ve acquired to personal Cisco” -2000 (Could 15, 2023)
No person Is aware of Something, 2023 First Half Version (June 30, 2023)
No person Is aware of Something (Assortment)
Supply:
If you rent stunt guys to direct the film
by Danny Boyd
CinemaStix, April 1, 2023
__________
1. Raiders to grow to be one of many highest-grossing movies of all time, and nominated for 9 Academy Awards.
2. Star Wars grossed $1 billion, then spawned a franchise with 5 movies within the unique sequence, all within the all-time prime 100 in gross field workplace gross sales. Plus 6 extra movies. Finally, Walt Disney Co. bought the Star Wars manufacturing firm Lucasfilm, for greater than $Four billion.
