Moderated by Collider’s Steven Weintraub, the Directors on Directing panel proved to be a treasure trove of fun details and hidden surprises — not least of all featuring Keanu Reeves himself crashing the panel in order to help debut the “John Wick 4” trailer. With /Film’s Jacob Hall in attendance, director Chad Stahelski was asked to pick the biggest “pinch-me moment” of his career. First jokingly alluding to his previous career as a stuntman, specifically when he performed the famous move from “The Matrix” where Keanu Reeves’ Neo performs a cartwheel and picks up a gun during the climactic lobby shootout scene, Stahelski then followed up by pinpointing a much more meaningful set of circumstances.
“The first time we did ‘Wick,’ the first movie, no one had really heard of it. I think we were in Fantastic Fest in Austin (Texas) and I was sitting next to Keanu and we had a little bowl of popcorn and we had snuck in. And the movie ended and it was silence, and everybody started clapping. I was like, ‘Holy s***, they’re clapping.’ And we didn’t know why [laughs]. We really didn’t. And then all of a sudden they started clapping and we were like, ‘Oh f***, they’re clapping about the movie.’ That was pretty cool.”
Filmmakers will tell you that there’s nothing more nerve-wracking than sitting in with an audience as their movie is screened for the first time, nervously checking the temperature of the room and anxiously waiting to see how viewers react to the action unfolding in front of them. This lovely anecdote goes to show that, as much of a global phenomenon as “John Wick” has become, one little screening in Austin, Texas ended up making all the difference.