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 become one of Hollywood’s most successful action franchises as Kolstad put pen to paper and wrote the first installment of John Wick. Introduced with Chad Stahelski at the helm in 2014, the film follows its title character, a former hitman, as he sets out to exact revenge after his home is broken into and his dog is killed. Kolstad originally envisioned Wick as an older hitman until he got a call that would change the face of the franchise.
“It was written for a guy like [Robert De Niro] in his early 70s where the dog was 14 years old. It was a gift from his wife and same thing happens, but it 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. During the chat, Kolstad was joined by writer and filmmaker Stephen Poliakoff and moderator James Mottram. “I think the body count on the first screenplay was like 11 people. And then I got a call from Keanu Reeves’ people asking, ‘Hey, do you want to meet Keanu?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And Keanu and I met for two nights a weekend for about three or four months. I remember he said, ‘I’m going to play him as 35.’ As soon as he said that, I realized we couldn’t have a 15-year-old dog. It became a puppy and from there, you just kind of have to roll with it and come to the end of it with the best idea wins. The best idea won.”
Kolstad, who went on to write two sequels with John Wick: Chapter 2 and John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, also noted how the first version of his script was titled Scorn. “I’m shit at titles,” he quipped, “and the reason it was called John Wick was because Keanu was so excited about it that when people asked him about the movie, he just started referring to it as John Wick. The studio said, ‘We’ve got a bunch of press out there already. Let’s change the name.’ It’s a lasting 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 very tender, nice, encouraging man and my grandmother’s name was Helen and she died a couple of months before the movie opened,” he said, recalling how he wrote her name into a hospital scene. “I got all these angry texts from cousins going, ‘For fuck’s sake, you had John Wick say goodbye to Helen in the hospital — it was way to process grief — but it was just giving a shout to my grandpa. My favorite story with that is he took me aside at one point and he’s like, ‘I’m so proud of you. You’ve been wanting to do this since you were 7, but I’m not going to watch a movie because it’s rated-R.’ And the last rated-R movie I saw with your grandmother was The Piano and I was like, ‘Holy lord, Harvey Keitel showed just about everything and more.”
Kolstad is coming off a busy 2025, which saw the release of his TV series Splinter Cell: Deathwatch and the Bob Odenkirk-starrers Normal and Nobody 2.
