Throughout the making of his four blockbuster John Wick films, star Keanu Reeves has held fast to one mantra: "Wick is pain. Wick is pain. Wick is pain." But what exactly does that mean? Is he referring to the physical toll these films have taken on him over the years? The emotional strain they endured when the first film almost fell apart? Or is he pointing to something deeper?
Find out in the new documentary Wick is Pain, which features "never-before-seen footage captured over a decade on and off set, chronicling John Wick’s journey from independent film—facing a mountain of creative, financial, and personal challenges—to a global phenomenon that redefined the action genre and launched three megahit sequels."
Ahead of the digital debut of this incredible new documentary, we caught up with producers Chad Stahelski and Josh Oreck to discuss the enduring legacy of the Keanu Reeves-fronted franchise. They revisit key moments from their decade-plus journey, sharing stories from behind the scenes that offer a rare look into the world of John Wick—and the familial bond that has made these films such a uniquely special experience.
The always-great Stahelski, in our third interview together, even offers a small tease of what’s to come in the now-official John Wick 5, which he’ll be returning to direct.
Stahelski co-directed John Wick and has been the sole director of John Wick: Chapter 2, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, and John Wick: Chapter 4. He also serves as a producer on the films through his 87eleven Entertainment production banner and is the founder and co-owner of 87eleven Action Design, which develops the intricate stunt sequences for the films and for most films across Hollywood, including Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts*.
Oreck produced the documentary through Narrator Inc., his production company that he runs with his wife Tina Carter, who was an executive producer on Wick is Pain. He previously worked on the documentaries for The Matrix trilogy, and also produced behind-the-scenes content for the first three John Wick films.
Wick is Pain is now available to purchase on all Digital HD platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, and YouTube!
Watch our full video interview with stars producers Chad Stahelski and Josh Oreck below and/or keep scrolling to read the transcription. Plus, please remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more exclusive content!
ROHAN: Chad, since this doc covers a 10-year period in your life, what's the first thing that pops out to you when you see yourself working on the first John Wick as a new director compared to the filmmaker you are today?
CHAD: It's nostalgic in a weird kind of way, but, like, both good and bad, but like, I have a very different kind of outlook on all that. Like, you can always ask, would you go do something different, right? But, if you don't make those mistakes you made, you can't be where you are now, you know, and because of that, you know, Guillermo del Toro or Orson Welles would always say movies are a series of happy accidents. You know, it's never the plan that comes through, like you see all the scripts around me right now, like, those aren't movies. Those are ideas for movies or blueprints, but the house rarely comes out like the blueprint, right? You have a plan, you go, but without those mistakes, without those things, it wouldn't have happened.
Dave and I, on the first one, we had the arrogance of ignorance, for sure. We were already coming from a very successful action and second unit director career, so we thought we kind of knew everything. We had a massive ego at the time, right? And, we realized the first weekend, we didn't know [frick] all anything. We were in trouble, like, you know, we had to figure a lot of things out, and the way we figured them out, and the people that taught us, we couldn't have been that receptive, or we wouldn't have been that deep in it, had we not made those mistakes.
So, you look back, and I look at it with a great deal of fondness and a great deal of humility. Like, I look at the documentary, and it went through a couple phases, right, with different storylines and different threads. And, it starts off as a monster, and you tone it down. But like, you know, a big chunk of, I think the first version Josh showed me was a lot of mostly John Wick 1 and the setup and all the stuff we did. So, we spent a lot of time in that world, and that was, you can actually see the mistakes happening in the documentary. You almost want to cry out to the ghost of Christmas past, going, yeah, I wouldn't do that if I were you, like you're talking to the movie.
It's fun to watch. It makes my palms sweat a little bit, but Keanu and I nudge each other as we watch it, going remember how dumb we were back then? Hopefully, you can watch the movies and see if you ever had a weekend to waste watching John Wick movies. We're like hopefully you see us. We did try to get better. We rationalized what we screwed up and tried to get better as filmmakers as we went. I hope that answers your question. It's difficult and entertaining to watch.
ROHAN: Josh, since you've also been heavily involved with these films since the beginning, and know firsthand what a grueling process making the first one was - what did you see when you see how Chad and Keanu and everyone talk about the different films?
JOSH: Yeah, I mean, that's been one of the more interesting things for me to witness is, you know, I think, and you see this in the documentary, is in the first film, you see an incredible struggle to get it made. One, because, you know, there wasn't a budget, there wasn't any financing, there wasn't any belief in John Wick, and two, as Chad said, they were new directors making mistakes. And they, you know, it was a hard job to take on, and they invented something entirely new, so that part of it was there.
But, as time went on, and they made John Wicks 2, 3, and 4, I really was stunned by Chad and Keanu’s growth, just as filmmakers. They really worked their asses off to invent and populate a universe of their own making in a way that I've never seen before. And, it was as hard as we make it sound, as much as we call it pain, like it was just a joy to watch, that they just were inventive and had fun and had this incredible commitment to the design of action and to the growth of this entirely imagined world and universe that's, you know, as complicated in the end as Lord of the Rings or anything else like that, even though it feels kind of real and heightened.
So, that's been the thing for me that's been the most amazing, and I don't want to blow smoke up Chad's ass, but like, I feel like, by the fourth film, he was working on like a Sergio Leone level of scene craft, like, really, just like coming into a place considering every aspect of how a scene in a sequence might play out, and telling the story in the absolute most optimal way, and that's like the coolest thing you can witness when you're watching people make movies.
ROHAN: Chad, the documentary is called Wick is Pain, and while we see the physical toll these films took on Keanu, the doc spends a good amount of time focusing on your pain, both professional and personal, as you're making these films. Did having to re-experience that pain give you a new perspective on the work you've done?
CHAD: I think between Josh and Keanu, Keanu used to always say, every time, Wick is pain, Wick is pain. I mean, I think he said it probably about 4000 times. I think that's probably why the title was chosen. That was Keanu’s little mantra, but it's also - Keanu says it the best, I think the best wrap up line is right at the end where Keo describes what pain really means.
You have pain, like a relationship is painful. It's painful when you're hurt, when you miss them, it's painful to love somebody, that's not a bad pain. You know, in the gym, I mean, we're in the gym six days a week with our stunt teams every morning, even now, you know, and that's pain, but it's the pain we choose to endure, because that's how we choose to spend and and enjoy our lives, right? Because it’s our pain, it's pain for an effort that we choose.
So is filmmaking painful? Every director you will ever interview would say, yeah, it's a shit fight. It's painful, whether it's fighting with, you know, the people you're collaborating with, whether it's studio producers, accountants, financiers, other cast members, department heads, or whether it's, you know, the pain of of opportunity cost of your life, or it is the actual pain of shooting a hundred days of nights, you know, in the mud, and, you got dogs, kids, cats, everything is going off on you and, you know, nothing's working right, and you're running out of money, but, at the end of the day, it's a little different than life, right?
Like sometimes life deals us a hand that we don't get to choose, and when you can't control or choose the pain, it's horrible - we've all been there, but when you do choose the pain, we're choosing to be on that set, you know? We're choosing to put our time and our energy and exert our will on a situation that we fought so hard to get there. Do we all wish it would be easier? Yeah, you tell me one great thing that was ever accomplished without a little bit of call it the opportunity cost of life. Some people call that pain. Some call it suffering, like we just got a group of people together that didn't just want to climb the mountain for a beautiful view. We enjoy the climb. We enjoy the struggle. It's that two feet in front of you. It's gaining that inch every day.
Like when you put a movie together, you could spend, like okay, the staircase shot, you know, in John Wick 4. We were done with that sequence in less than four days, but it took four months to prep. In life, that's a weird thing, you know, are you willing to trade four months of your life? Cut out other scenes, save that money for those four minutes of film. You struggle every day to make 30-40-50 setups so you piece together eight seconds of film. Are those eight seconds something that's going to hit the zeitgeist and make you and me and everybody else happy, and go, wow. I mean, we think it will.
So, we think that's worth every ounce of our effort, because when you stand there and you have people in these interviews or in the documentaries or stuff like that, go, wow. I mean, that's our high. Like Josh said, we start with a blank page, right? Then, we have an idea about this crazy, kooky guy, this kooky world, and a puppy, and next thing, you know, it's a movie. Then, it’s a franchise. And, the sequences we get to do like, you know, we think that kind of exertion is definitely worth the outcome. So, yeah, the pain is there. The pain is rough, and, you know, it does, it hurts, but it's worth every bit of it, I think.
ROHAN: Josh, you were able to witness Chad, David, and so many people on these films live out their dreams and become filmmakers - was being able to show that side of the filmmaking process a driving force behind making the documentary?
JOSH: I think so. There's a lot of luck involved with achieving your dreams, obviously. One of the stunt coordinators on John Wick 3 and 4, Scott Rogers, is making his own movie right now, so that is a thing right there.
And, I mean, I feel like Jeremy Marinas is someone else too, to speak to him, like he was someone sweeping the floor in 87eleven when I first met him, and, by the end, he was choreographing these intensely complicated scenes for Chad in Berlin and probably working on four other projects at the same time. And, he's just an intensely gifted person who works hard at all times. So, you know, I love to think that the great lesson of all this is that, like hard work, focus, attention to detail, to your body and to art really does pay off. There's a little bit of luck involved too, and I know Chad will agree with me on that, but I also just think, like it's been, you know, all I ever want to do with my storytelling is just encourage people to make more art, and that's what this is supposed to do.
ROHAN: In the doc, we get to see so many great moments - like Jackson falling off the building in John Wick 3 and we hear him talk about that moment and how you approached him, relatively calmly to just see if he was okay before attempting the stunt again. I can't imagine you would've had the same reaction after John Wick 1 - so what has built your confidence most as you've grown 87eleven Action Design, is it just the immense amount of prep or is it something else?
CHAD: Go one step back. It's not the word prep, it's the people who prep. Hire the best, you get the best. You train the best, you get the best. We're pretty uncompromising with that. It's always tricky when you're trying to get the best, you're trying not to be an elitist. It's not an attitude thing. It's not an us or them thing. You're just trying to find like minded people that don't want to settle, that want to explore and be good, and I'm not even talking about myself.
Most of the people on my team, I have a very strong will and have a very strong mindset, like I can focus very intensely. I have certain assets that made me kind of who I am now, physically or talent speaking, I'm on the low end of what's in 87eleven. As far as physical talent goes, I don't even compare to my top 20% of what our people can do, men and women. I'm on the low end of that, and I've experienced many, many performers that are physically very gifted, but it's also the mindset where as good as they are, it isn't enough. They want to be pushed. They want to expand, and they want to work on properties or projects that allow them to be more than they are. And, if they don't know something, it's not ‘that sucks, I don't want to learn that, I'm too good for that,’ it's oh, I don't know that. I better learn that. And, not only am I going to learn that, I'm going to be the best person in the world at it.
You have a couple of those people, and then you get the other side of it where, okay, we want to do this. We have someone like Jackson that acrobatically and kinesthetically, is physically gifted enough to do all that stuff. How are we going to do it safely and fool the audience, right? And, then that's a whole nother level of stunt riggers and action design guys that figure out how to do it, safely and all that.
So, if you have those people, yeah, there's always trust, there's always accidents, there's always Murphy's Law and chance and all that stuff. But like, you know, if you have the best people, and you know that their mindset isn't about being the best, it's about doing the best at what they do. That gives you confidence that I think very few people actually experience, because you have to drop your own ego and realize, nah, you're not the smartest guy in the room. These people are, and if you give these people a chance, they can do incredible things.
JOSH: I’ll give you a quick story about Jackson and Chad, really quick. The first time I ever met Jackson was in 2008 on a movie called Ninja Assassin that Chad and Dave were stunt coordinators on, and we went out to dinner at Soho House in Berlin with about 12 stunties, including Chad. We drank a lot of wine. It was a very nice dinner. At the very end of the dinner, Chad said, Jackson, you're paying for this. Jackson was probably making, I don't know, $300 a day or something to work on that movie. And Jackson was like, what are you talking about? And Chad was like, you were late to the van today. So, Jackson had been late, by two minutes, to the van to get to work. And that's just testament, again, to Chad training them and teaching them the value in hard work, showing up on time and getting the work done. So, there's some shaping being done by this guy that he probably doesn't take enough credit for.
ROHAN: The doc ends with pretty much everyone, including you and Keanu, contemplating whether you would ever do John Wick 5 and you even say no, but admit you could change your mind tomorrow and it seems as though you have since the film has been officially announced.
You've already given John Wick the Spike Spiegel ending, with him "dying" on the stairs, but you did leave it a little ambiguous in the final scene as to whether he's actually dead or not.
So, I have to ask - what has piqued your interest in doing a fifth one?
CHAD: Yeah, good question. Look, we're open to the possibility of it, like Keanu and I both - it would have to be in a very different way, and we have some ideas. There’s enough of an idea and enough of a desire to keep the option open. We have our thoughts. Do we have a solid, oh, we're going to do this, no, but that's how they always start.
Like first we need a little time off. You know, I think all the great directors that I respect, they take as much time off as they can to explore other things and research other projects. I've never been the guy that's gone job to job to job to job. I like taking my time and exhausting things out. And, Keanu and I took a good two years off, and developed other things. We've put our creative efforts into the John Wick anime that's going on, the John Wick TV show, which is going, which we think are super cool, and it's kind of through that, that you get to explore areas that we couldn't have done in a John Wick based series because we're so focused on John Wick.
Now, without John Wick, we've got all these other great characters and story lines going and I think it's through that that we have a little bit of desire, and hopefully will lead to a little self discovery about where we want to take him next. So, I don't mean to be so ambiguous - the main thing is do you have the desire? Do Keanu and I miss it? Would we like to, yeah, do we have it all sorted out yet to be a rock solid idea? No.
If it’s something on that level, it's got to be for the right reasons, like we keep saying, you've got to really, really love it. It's got to be the one that goes, okay, there's a reason to do this. We just want to have it dialed in before, so if we do talk about it, then we're like, Okay, we have it.
ROHAN: I remember after John Wick 3, you told me that the only way his story ends is with his death, and then in John Wick 4, you killed him, and now you're telling me he might be back, so, I'm very excited to see what you and Keanu are cooking up.
CHAD: Yeah, he's tricky to kill, that John Wick.
WICK IS PAIN is the incredible true story behind the John Wick franchise, starring Keanu Reeves. In never-before-seen footage captured over a decade on and off set, the film chronicles John Wick’s journey from independent film—facing a mountain of creative, financial, and personal challenges—into a global phenomenon that redefined the action genre and launched three megahit sequels. Join Keanu Reeves, director Chad Stahelski, and the extended Wick cast and crew as they go behind the scenes of this billion-dollar franchise that almost never happened.