Artnewspress : Today the world knows Chad Stahelski as the visionary filmmaker behind the John Wick universe. But Stahelski has long since also garnered a reputation as one of Hollywood’s foremost stunt coordinators. This reputation was solidified through Stahelski’s work on the Matrix trilogy. With The Matrix 4 currently under development with Lana Wachowski returning to direct, Stahelslki teased his return to the franchise to bring to life some new and exciting action scenes.
“First of all, creatively, Lana’s one of the most unique people I’ve ever worked with in the industry. Just a fantastic mind. She’s a great director who loves to direct her own action. I mean, with her, you never discuss an action sequence. It’s the sequence. You hear me say it all the time; you probably hear Dave Leitch say it all the time. Action and story don’t cut; they don’t separate. So you have somebody like Lana, who’s going, “We’re going to do this and this and this.” She’s got some really great ideas.”
“She knows the visual style. She knows what she’s trying to say in the sequence. She wants to collaborate and see how high you can take it in collaboration. So, to answer your question, she comes with this idea. She comes with this set piece. She comes with, “This is the character. This is what’s happening. This is the conflict. This is where I need him to be emotionally or psychologically or whatever plot-wise at the end of this sequence. What do you got in your bag of tricks to make it absolutely crazy?” And that’s where we bring in the stunt guys and our choreographers.”
Sounds like Chad Stahelski jumped back into a collaboration with Wachowski as quickly and smoothly as during the original Matrix trilogy. Of course, fans expectations are sky-high for a worthy follow-up to the classic sci-fi series, and the two filmmakers are taking that as a challenge to one-up their own work in the previous movies.
“It’s literally just day after day of bouncing ideas off of each other. What’s the bigger, better, cooler thing? How do we help Lana achieve what she’s trying to do with whatever visual concept she’s trying to mold? She’s one of those great people that she’ll tell us something and we’ll say, “Okay, we’ve got this.” Then she’s like, “Oh my God, that’s awesome. I didn’t think of that, but what if we took this and made it this?” She always kind of one-ups you and that’s a challenge. (Laughs.) She’s probably still the most challenging person, in a good way, that I’ve ever worked with because she’s always taking your ideas and going, “Okay, how do we make it better?”
With that, Stahelski ended his take on the upcoming film with the hint that audiences can expect a movie that gives fans exactly what they want out of the franchise.
