‘John Wick’ nearly had alternate ending where the puppy survived

nme.com:

John Wick‘s directors have revealed that the first movie almost had an alternate ending where the puppy survived.Chad Stahelski and David Leitch spoke about the various battles they had with the studio on the 10th anniversary of their action movie.One of them was the death of Wick’s (Keanu Reeves) dog, which sends the protagonist on his killing spree.“We were told, ‘It’s bad luck.’ ‘It’s bad juju.’ ‘It’s ‘Old Yeller,’ you can’t do this!’ ‘No one will want to see this on screen; you’re going to alienate the audience,’” Leitch told The Business Insider.“And I’m like, ‘We’re going to execute people at close range; killing the dog is one thing, but what about the brutal massacre of all these human beings?

Are they going to be able to accept that?’ … They didn’t understand that we were making a genre movie. We are genre fans to the core, and we know those hard-boiled moments are what make memorable moments.”Stahelski added: “For the next couple of weeks it was suggested that we shoot an alternative ending revealing that the puppy actually isn’t dead.

But Keanu stood up for us. … Eventually, they just felt, ‘Fuck it, let’s see what these guys can do.’”The pair also said they locked horns with the studio over the character’s beard.“We were trying to do a modern-day Greek mythology fantasy movie.

That’s not mainstream. So we wanted to do something cool with Keanu,” Stahelski said.“But the money people, they wanted to see Keanu fucking Reeves.