It's a hard task to follow up a successful film and after JOHN WICK blew us all away and a sequel was announced, we were left hoping that JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO wouldn't wind up falling short. Sequels which are as good, or even better, as their predecessors do exist, but they're definitely a rare breed. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO director Chad Stahelski spoke with Collider recently about the difficulties of crafting a sequel to a film people loved.
The reason people love you so much sometimes is because you’re original. John Wick was an original twist on a classic tale, with a fancier look and a different way of telling the story. More like a Greek myth rather than your typical action movie. So you give away your whole hand with that, you give away originality. So how do you compete with yourself?
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Eventually they decided to just stop competing with themselves as well as the pressures of living up to the first JOHN WICK by setting the sequel off in a new direction. Stahelski compared it to the approach which James Cameron took when he was tasked with crafting a sequel to Ridley Scott's ALIEN.
Once we stopped worrying about ourselves it was fun. I mean is it as good as the first one? I don’t know. Did we go better in some ways? Yes. Did we experiment with the characters more? Yes. Everything there is better. Is the enjoyment better? I think the enjoyment is there, but it’s different. All the other director friends I have don’t like doing sequels or don’t like doing other people’s sequels, which is even worse I think. But then there’s other examples. I think the best example is Ridley Scott. He did the first Alien. James Cameron created Aliens. Cameron, I think think is a genius for that. Going, “I’m not making the same Aliens again, I’m just gonna make it.” If I could be so bold as to take that similarity then so be it.
Chad Stahelski added that using "Chapter Two" in the title was a further attempt to differentiate it from the first film, likening it to "a chapter in a book. Where, if you pick up a book, you don’t have to read the beginning, you can just jump into a chapter." JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO is set for a February 10, 2017 release.
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