Derek Kolstad was dog sitting with a Chihuahua and Corgi mix in his lap when a nightmarish scenario popped into his head: “What would I do if someone tried to kill this f—ing dog?”
The delivered the inspiration for what would turn out to be considered one of Hollywood’s most successful motion franchises as Kolstad put pen to paper and wrote the primary installment of John Wick. Introduced with Chad Stahelski on the helm in 2014, the film follows its title character, a former hitman, as he sets out to exact revenge after his house is broken into and his dog is killed. Kolstad originally envisioned Wick as an older hitman until he got a call that may change the face of the franchise.
“It was written for a man like [Robert De Niro] in his early 70s where the dog was 14 years old. It was a present from his wife and same thing happens, but it surely was an old dog,” Kolstad recalled during a panel conversation titled “The Character is the Plot” at Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival last week in Valletta. Throughout the chat, Kolstad was joined by author and filmmaker Stephen Poliakoff and moderator James Mottram. “I believe the body count on the primary screenplay was like 11 people. After which I got a call from Keanu Reeves’ people asking, ‘Hey, do you wish to meet Keanu?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And Keanu and I met for 2 nights a weekend for about three or 4 months. I remember he said, ‘I’m going to play him as 35.’ As soon as he said that, I spotted we couldn’t have a 15-year-old dog. It became a puppy and from there, you simply type of should roll with it and are available to the top of it with the perfect idea wins. The very best idea won.”
Kolstad, who went on to put in writing two sequels with John Wick: Chapter 2 and John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, also noted how the primary version of his script was titled Scorn. “I’m shit at titles,” he quipped, “and the explanation it was called John Wick was because Keanu was so enthusiastic about it that when people asked him in regards to the movie, he just began referring to it as John Wick. The studio said, ‘We’ve got a bunch of press on the market already. Let’s change the name.’ It’s an enduring legacy.”
Speaking of legacy, Kolstad also noted how he honored his grandparents with the film, specifically his grandfather who was named John Finlayson Wick. “He was a really tender, nice, encouraging man and my grandmother’s name was Helen and she or he died a few months before the movie opened,” he said, recalling how he wrote her name right into a hospital scene. “I got all these offended texts from cousins going, ‘For fuck’s sake, you had John Wick say goodbye to Helen within the hospital — it was method to process grief — but it surely was just giving a shout to my grandpa. My favorite story with that’s he took me aside at one point and he’s like, ‘I’m so happy with you. You’ve been wanting to do that because you were 7, but I’m not going to look at a movie since it’s rated-R.’ And the last rated-R movie I saw along with your grandmother was The Piano and I used to be like, ‘Holy lord, Harvey Keitel showed nearly all the things and more.”
Kolstad is coming off a busy 2025, which saw the discharge of his TV series Splinter Cell: Deathwatch and the Bob Odenkirk-starrers Normal and No one 2.