Without a dog, the John Wick movies wouldn’t even exist. Over the past three films, Keanu Reeves‘ assassin has either lost a canine, been attacked by them, or fell in love with a new one, so naturally, John Wick 4 plans to keep that tradition going. In a new interview, director Chad Stahelski revealed that the fourth installment — which by the way is only tentatively titled John Wick: Chapter 4 and may change — will feature a brand new dog, who will do a “cool thing.”
However, making that “cool thing” happened required getting the canine acclimated to the vast stunt team, who were given the arduous task of chilling with the dog for an hour a day and just having a ball. Via Collider:
You have to get to know your friends. So in order for the dog to be very playful, and safe, and have the confidence just like a human would, they have to spend time with each individual stunt guy. So we had to rotate every hour. One of our 10 main stunt team guys would go and play. That was his job. He had to go play with the dogs, and get tackled by the dogs, and play Frisbee with the dog. So you get acclimated to our canine friend and then that’s how we started working it. But it was about a little over five months.
After being asked if the stunt team ever got to take the dogs home, Stahelski said that was a “no” because it’s important for the dogs to go home with the trainers. But the stunt team got plenty of paw time on set.
“If they’re not in the stunt rehearsal hall with Keanu or cast or choreographing, they’re with the dogs,” Stahelski told Collider. “They don’t take them home. But they spend a lot of time with the animals.”
(Via Collider)