Speaking with /Film’s Vanessa Armstrong, director Chad Stahelski opened up about the influence of greek mythology in the film, particularly the legend of Odysseus. For Stahelski, what drew him to those myths is the memorable iconography of the trials characters like Odysseus or Hercules went through. things like the Golden Fleece, the Minotaur, and the Hydra. If you think about it, these are essentially set pieces, ones that nevertheless help paint a picture of the epic story.
“If you can picture Odysseus in his journey tied to the mast, and the sirens are calling — that’s worldbuilding. That’s not just action, is it? They’re wrapping it and showing you something about him — about fortitude, about resilience, about all this stuff. We’ve taken a lot of cues from that.”
Indeed, more than the other three films, the set pieces in “John Wick: Chapter 4” take on a mythological scale. This almost 3-hour-long movie breezes by, thanks in large part to its giant set pieces that break each arc into more digestible chunks. Each of these set pieces has its own unique set of enemies, scope, and environments that make it impossible to really try and compare one with the others.
