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When Keanu Reeves first hit screens as John Wick in 2014, audiences were enthralled with the unique style and kinetic fight sequences. Basically inventing a new style of movie combat, John Wick was something completely different than other action movies at the time. Which is why it was no surprise when a slew of John Wick Rip Off movies came tumbling out of Hollywood. Nobody, Violent Night, The Beekeeper, Monkey Man, the list goes on. Which begs the question, have we had enough John Wick rip off movies?
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People keep asking if I'm back, and I haven't really had an answer
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But now, yeah, I'm thinking I'm back! John Wick has taken the action world by storm. Not only is the character now a beloved role for
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the internet's favorite chosen one, Keanu Reeves, but the films themselves have become a bastion of
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stylistic invention and hyperkinetic stunt work. However, with this windfall of badassness comes
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imitators. And if there's one thing the action genre does better than any other genre, it's
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spawn rip-offs. It might seem ironic now, but John Wick started off with a simple goal
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to craft a simple revenge story. The film's only real goal was to be the directorial debut of two
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of Keanu Reeves' stuntman and action choreographer friends, Chad Stahelski and David Leach. After
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reading an early draft of the script, the pair convinced Reeves to back their play as first-time
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directors. And luckily for everyone involved, it worked out very well. Reeves has had a long
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connection with the martial arts and stunt world. After learning multiple disciplines during the
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pre-production period for the initial Matrix film, he went on to form a close friendship with his
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entire stunt team. Reeves would even go on to direct the feature film Man of Tai Chi that he
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essentially built from the ground up for Tiger Hu Chen, who he met as a stuntman during the filming
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of Matrix Reloaded. The combination of how Stahelski and Leech wanted to turn John Wick into a mythic
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figure and the fact that the story would feature a new kinetic action choreography style named
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Gun Fu, propelled the project to over $86 million at the box office
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One event here, another event there, or he's just shooting them in that face
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Ultimately, only Stahelski would receive final directorial screen credit, but the film
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which was produced off a budget of roughly $20 million, has spawned three direct sequel films
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a prequel TV show, and an upcoming spinoff film, and deservedly so. The John Wick films are exciting
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fun and formally inventive when in lesser hands they could very easily have been like every other revenge movie that came before But even more than being a surprise hit the film has crossed over Not only is it a beloved series of movies to people
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who don't tend to follow the ins and outs of the action world, but the hyper-stylized visuals and homages to classic films
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have been mimicked and cribbed to the degree that there's almost an entire genre of clone John Wick films
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Recent films like The Beekeeper, Violent Night, Nobody, Sisu, Kate, Gunpowder Milkshake, and Hotel Artemis all utilize specific lighting schemes
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action choreography, and boiled-down high concept. Santa's gonna eat through these guys
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Like a plate full of cookies. You can practically imagine the pitch meetings that greenlit these films just from the movie posters
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It's just a math equation at this point. Violent Night is just, what if Santa was John Wick
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Or Kate is, what if we did John Wick, but a woman? Look, is this the worst trend ever
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No, not by a long shot. The action genre, much like the horror genre, loves to mimic anything that's been financially
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successful. And left unchecked, it can go almost to the point of parody. The 80s had their roided
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out action hero era, with Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, and Norris all playing rock
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paper, scissors for who would star in this week's quip-filled generic shoot-em-up
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I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum
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That all being said, there was a subgenre of action movies that took the cineplex by storm
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in the 70s and 80s that feels directly related to the over-proliferation of John Wick films
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the revenge genre, movies like I Spit on Your Grave, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
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and Lady Snowblood, but more specifically, the Death Wish films. Initially released in 1974
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and starring Charles Bronson, Death Wish has a similar arc to John Wick. The film
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based off the 1972 novel of the same name by writer Brian Garfield, tells the story of an
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architect named Paul Kersey as he descends into madness and vengeance following the assault of his
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wife by random street hooligans He takes the law into his own hands stalking the streets at night and becomes what the local news dubs the vigilante The film is a direct outgrowth of the palpable suburban fear of urban crime throughout the 1970s While the film pulled
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in nearly $22 million off a budget of only $4 million, it didn't spawn a sequel or imitators
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immediately. Almost 10 years later, however, during the 1980s action boom, the revenge genre
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would come roaring back, and Death Wish would not only spawn four direct sequels, but also an army
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of imitators. This arguably relates directly to John Wick because the initial screenplay version
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of John Wick was originally titled Scorn. It was essentially a Death Wish movie crossed with
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Unforgiven about an older hitman in his 80s coming back for revenge after the dog his deceased wife
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had given him was killed. So, as you can see, these trends are as cyclical as they can be cynical
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The Hollywood machine is built to do one thing and one thing only, make money. Therefore
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when one of these films has some success, more imitators rush in to fill that space
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It's not rocket science. However, there are certain trends that are more creatively fruitful than others
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Even in the 2000s, we had everyone and their mother imitating the action of the Bourne identity
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That trend of shaky cam and kinetic violence got so popular, even James Bond was forced to rebrand and basically just make a
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what-if-Jason-Bourne-was-James-Bond installment in Casino Royale. The same could be said for the post-Taken Revenge movies
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It felt like for a solid 10 years that every action movie being made was just taken on a plane
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or taken on a train or taken in whatever. But coming back full circle to the current glut of John Wick clones
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when is the point in which a trend like this isn't worth it anymore? Well, from a studio perspective
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they keep making them because these types of movies make money. From the storytelling perspective
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it makes sense to try and use the tropes of a successful formula to generate some cover fire to allow filmmakers
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to push things in interesting directions. Here's the problem, though. A lot of these filmmakers aren't doing that
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What is David Ayer saying with The Beekeeper? Nothing. He's saying, I Like a Payday Please Violent Night Gunpowder Milkshake they pretty much you entries into the genre Got a law enforcement background I told you I take care of bees Atomic Blonde directed by uncredited John Wick co David Leitch is a perfect
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example of attempting to do something a bit different. Yes, obviously the film still features the action choreography you'd expect, but it also
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features a sleek and more nuanced character-focused narrative. There are some deeply resonant emotional moments in that film that are obviously Leitch attempting
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to push things a bit further. Furthermore, the recent directorial debut of Dev Patel in Monkey Man
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Is it a John Wick clone film that even features a direct homage to the top-down fight scene in John Wick 4
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Yes, absolutely. But it is also about the growing political unrest in India
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And in some ways, Monkey Man's presence in this conversation harkens back to many of the Asian films that arguably jump-started the revenge genre here in the West
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The thing that separates John Wick from the others we've been discussing is that Chad Stahelski is a real student of cinema
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He loves obscure films, foreign films, and is constantly dropping artful homages and taking exciting visual influences
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That's what's difficult about many of the recent John Wick clone films, is that on its surface is a pretty straightforward concept
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It's a revenge story, and we've seen it a hundred times, but what separates it is the execution
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It's not just the lighting or the expressive action choreography, though. It's the fact that the Wick films pull from diverse influences such as John Ford, Buster Keaton, and Akira Kurosawa
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And these ripoff films, they're just mimicking the Wick films typically, not bringing as much of their own voice to it, with a few notable exceptions
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John Wick is a franchise that doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon
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which means that these ripoffs and clone projects are probably also not going anywhere anytime soon
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So that idea of synthesizing disparate influences into a more unique version of the trope
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is where the lifeblood of the genre lies. The fact that we're here talking about this little revenge movie almost 10 years later
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is a perfect example of how far you can go with a little elbow grease and a few non-conventional ideas