After the first two action smorgasbord John Wick movies, its almost hard to know how John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum ups the ante even further and gives Baba Yaga something new to do beyond just adding to his body count. Fortunately, Keanu Reeves had some ideas, and there were two things that the actor really wanted to see in the third film. As he explained:
I wanted John Wick in desert, passing a dune. Saudi Arabia. Lawrence of Arabia, in a suit John Wick. ... And I wanted John Wick on a horse.
John Wick of Arabia? Keanu Reeves seemingly wanted to put his character in situations that we haven’t seen him in before, ones that are foreign to him and the audience. As Keanu Reeves told Collider, he wanted to put the hitman in the desert like Lawrence of Arabia and separately, have him ride a horse. As we’ve seen in the trailers for John Wick 3, Keanu Reeves got his wish on both accounts.
In the trailers, we see John Wick in the desert, traversing a dune in a suit. He looks completely out of his element and out of the context we are used to seeing him in. Keanu Reeves wants John Wick to suffer, and not being appropriately dressed in the desert looks pretty miserable. That said, John Wick does still look cool in his suit and maybe he’ll meet up with the new Men in Black who will also be going to the desert in Men in Black: International.
John Wick on a horse is also quite the sight because we are used to seeing the assassin on foot or in a car, so to see the ultimate badass riding a horse through the city like a knight of old is pretty cool. Keanu Reeves also elaborated a bit on these elements and the broadening of the world of John Wick. He said:
I thought it would be cool if John Wick escaped on a horse, so we got John Wick riding some horses, fighting with some horses. That was fun. I thought would be cool if John Wick was in a suit in a desert, somehow. So, we’re going to go some desert. We got some cool story there that is opening up the world. We’re really fans of the world. I love the character, so I was like, "How do we get John Wick on a dune?" We came up with an idea – we’re opening up the idea of the High Table, the world—the levels, architecture. If 1 and 2 were The Continental, and we kind of started to hear about the High Table, and now we’re going deeper into the High Table.
Normally you might think that bending the story so that you could do something that looks cool would be ill advised, but the John Wick franchise is all about doing badass stuff that looks cool and, in this instance, these elements are opening up the world of the film. John Wick: Chapter 2 moved the franchise international and John Wick 3 looks as though it will have even more globetrotting.
It sounds like part of what takes Baba Yaga to the desert is the deepening mythology of the series that will happen in this film. The existence of The Continental was what first showed us that John Wick wasn’t just a normal revenge tale or hitman movie, it had a mythology to it. In John Wick: Chapter 2 we began to see that there was an organization that seemed to govern these international establishments and set the rules for the assassins, The High Table.
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is set to take us further into The High Table and show us more about how this underground world of assassins works, and that should give fans plenty to be excited for -- in addition to seeing John Wick do battle on horseback, trek through the desert, and swordfight with ninjas on motorcycles.
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum gallops into theaters on May 17. Check out our 2019 release schedule to keep track of this year’s biggest movies, and for all your movie news stay tuned to CinemaBlend.
