{"id":528224,"date":"2026-07-01T21:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T21:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/528224\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T21:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T21:04:09","slug":"derek-kolstad-on-early-days-of-john-wick-and-keanu-reeves-input","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/528224\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek Kolstad on Early Days of \u2018John Wick\u2019 and Keanu Reeves\u2019 Input"},"content":{"rendered":"

Derek Kolstad<\/a> was dog sitting with a Chihuahua and Corgi mix in his lap when a nightmarish scenario popped into his head: \u201cWhat would I do if someone tried to kill this f\u2014ing dog?\u201d <\/p>\n

The delivered the inspiration for what would become one of Hollywood\u2019s most successful action franchises as Kolstad put pen to paper and wrote the first installment of John Wick. Introduced with Chad Stahelski at the helm in 2014, the film follows its title character, a former hitman, as he sets out to exact revenge after his home is broken into and his dog is killed. Kolstad originally envisioned Wick as an older hitman until he got a call that would change the face of the franchise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was written for a guy like [Robert De Niro] in his early 70s where the dog was 14 years old. It was a gift from his wife and same thing happens, but it was an old dog,\u201d Kolstad recalled during a panel conversation titled \u201cThe Character is the Plot\u201d at Malta\u2019s Mediterrane Film Festival<\/a> last week in Valletta. During the chat, Kolstad was joined by writer and filmmaker Stephen Poliakoff and moderator James Mottram. \u201cI think the body count on the first screenplay was like 11 people. And then I got a call from Keanu Reeves<\/a>\u2019 people asking, \u2018Hey, do you want to meet Keanu?\u2019 I said, \u2018Yes.\u2019 And Keanu and I met for two nights a weekend for about three or four months. I remember he said, \u2018I\u2019m going to play him as 35.\u2019 As soon as he said that, I realized we couldn\u2019t have a 15-year-old dog. It became a puppy and from there, you just kind of have to roll with it and come to the end of it with the best idea wins. The best idea won.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PlaywrightPoliakoff, Kolstad and Mottram on stage during at Malta\u2019s Mediterrane Film Festival in Valletta on June 26, 2026.<\/p>\n

Kolstad, who went on to write two sequels with John Wick: Chapter 2 and John Wick: Chapter 3 \u2014\u00a0Parabellum, also noted how the first version of his script was titled Scorn. \u201cI\u2019m shit at titles,\u201d he quipped, \u201cand the reason it was called John Wick was because Keanu was so excited about it that when people asked him about the movie, he just started referring to it as John Wick. The studio said, \u2018We\u2019ve got a bunch of press out there already. Let\u2019s change the name.\u2019 It\u2019s a lasting legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of legacy, Kolstad also noted how he honored his grandparents with the film, specifically his grandfather who was named John Finlayson Wick. \u201cHe was a very tender, nice, encouraging man and my grandmother\u2019s name was Helen and she died a couple of months before the movie opened,\u201d he said, recalling how he wrote her name into a hospital scene. \u201cI got all these angry texts from cousins going, \u2018For fuck\u2019s sake, you had John Wick say goodbye to Helen in the hospital \u2014 it was way to process grief \u2014\u00a0but it was just giving a shout to my grandpa. My favorite story with that is he took me aside at one point and he\u2019s like, \u2018I\u2019m so proud of you. You\u2019ve been wanting to do this since you were 7, but I\u2019m not going to watch a movie because it\u2019s rated-R.\u2019 And the last rated-R movie I saw with your grandmother was The Piano and I was like, \u2018Holy lord, Harvey Keitel showed just about everything and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kolstad is coming off a busy 2025, which saw the release of his TV series Splinter Cell: Deathwatch and the Bob Odenkirk<\/a>-starrers Normal and Nobody 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Derek Kolstad was dog sitting with a Chihuahua and Corgi mix in his lap when a nightmarish scenario…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[9082,321,9083,93,61,1042,60,6922,223006],"class_list":["post-528224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bob-odenkirk","tag-celebrities","tag-derek-kolstad","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-international","tag-ireland","tag-keanu-reeves","tag-mediterrane-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}