Many fans have wondered why John Wick made his life so much harder by killing The Elder in Chapter 4 first before dismantling the rest of the High Table.
At the beginning of John Wick: Chapter 4, after recovering from his brutal betrayal from Winston in Chapter 3, Keanu Reeves' anti-hero is on a mission to dismantle the High Table itself.
The Elder, played by George Georgiou, is the most powerful person in the franchise's entire fictional international criminal underworld. He even sits above the all-mighty High Table, a group he's in charge of.
Needless to say, John Wick made quick work of him––which significantly raised the difficulty of his final mission.
Why John Wick Killed the High Table Elder In Chapter 4
"He Had to Go Back to the Top and Make a Statement That I'm Not Bending."
While promoting the ten-year-anniversary of John Wick and speaking with The Direct's Russ Milheim, John Wick: Chapter 4 director Chad Stahelski spelled out why the anti-hero killed The Elder at the start of the film:
Chad Stahelski: One [reason] is, you know, there's the hard-boiled version of, okay, you broke a deal. This is what we're going to do. You know, Keanu [Reeves' John Wick] broke a deal on the third one. So he had to go back to the top and make a statement that I'm not bending. That's very Wick. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but neither does Wick. If John just shot himself, he would have saved a lot of friends and people. That's the whole thing.
It's a weird character, right? It's the true anti-hero, he is literally the anti-hero. He is not a good guy in the end, but like he tries to redeem himself in a way that he can make peace, meaning you can't fight yourself. And that's a big theme in a lot of mythology. You are who you are, and you can't really break that. You try to course correct, but you can't stop being who you are.
And I think the second one, it was a little bit of a declaration of war. It's, Yes, okay, bring it, I'll do it all. It's me against the universe. You know, we always say it's man against the gods and the gods against the Titans. And that's kind of how we do, and that was... whether you want to say it's Odysseus screaming up at the Gods, or Achilles, you know, challenging the universe to come and give them the opportunity to be great, any of the classic themes. But, whereas our today heroes would have probably run, hit, or made a deal, our hero goes, you know, fuck it, bring it.
Why Did John Wick Kill Santino D'Antonio in The Continental?
"He Just Couldn't Control Himself."
The Direct also spoke with John Wick producer Erica Lee in another interview celebrating the franchise.
When posed with the question of why John Wick killed Santino D'Antonio on The Continental (an establishment that actually got its own spinoff) grounds at the end of John Wick: Chapter 2, despite knowing the consequences of it being strictly forbidden, Lee offered her own interpretation about why it went down that way:
Erica Lee: It's a good question. I mean, my interpretation of it is that he just, yeah, he just couldn't control himself. He just didn't care. And he knew there was obviously the coda and the rules and the consequences and all of that, but he was just so overcome with rage.
All the John Wick movies can be purchased digitally.
The next installment in the franchise, Ballerina, is set to hit theaters on June 6, 2025.
John Wick: Chapter 5 is in development, but no plot details or release window is known.
