In many ways, John Wick feels like the character that Keanu Reeves was born to play. Admittedly it's a role partially built around his skills and sensibilities, but that does nothing to lessen the fact that his two performances to date have been some of the best of his career. Because he is also so involved with the development of the growing franchise, you'd think he would know the part backwards and forwards -- his entire history included - but there is one area of the killer protagonist's past that is being kept a mystery to even him: the notorious Impossible Task that allowed John Wick to leave the assassins world behind.
Details of the Impossible Task are kept as a fun big screen secret in both John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2, but when I had the opportunity to sit down with Keanu Reeves earlier this month I inquired about how much he personally knew about the big event. As it turns out, the Impossible Task still mostly exists as a mostly undefined mission in the minds of the actor, director Chad Stahelski, and writer Derek Kolstad. Said Reeves,
The Impossible Mission is kind of one that is kind of like in a dream state. So we have certain kind of ideas, but Chad and Derek, the writer, haven't defined it. Yeah. So there's no defined 'Impossible Task.'
It's not terribly hard to figure out why this is. While it certainly would have been cool to hear that Keanu Reeves, Chad Stahelski and Derek Kolstad have mapped out every single element of the John Wick universe, the reality is that setting any kind of history in stone can be limiting as far as creativity is concerned. As long as the Impossible Task remains undefined, it can continue to come back into play and we can learn more about it as more chapters in the story hit the big screen.
You can watch Keanu Reeves talk about the current nature of John Wick's Impossible Task in the video below:
With John Wick: Chapter 2 coming out this Friday, February 10th, you can expect to find a lot more John Wick goodness on CinemaBlend in the coming days -- including more from my interview with Keanu Reeves. Stay tuned for that, and hit the comments section below with your own theories and thoughts about what went down during the Impossible Task.
