John Wick co-director David Leitch says Bruce Willis was initially cast as the titular hitman.
“We were first exposed to the script by our manager at the time, Kelly McCormick, who’s now my wife and producer,” Leitch explained to The Hollywood Reporter. “She had introduced us to Basil Iwanyk and Peter Lawson at Basil’s company [Thunder Road] to maybe do second unit work on that script. So that was the first time we read it, and I think Bruce Willis might’ve been attached at that time.”
The first John Wick film hit theaters in 2014. Around this time, Willis was still on his A-list action star game, having filmed the last installment in the Die Hard franchise, A Good Day to Die Hard, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, and Looper. Producer Basily Iwanyk reportedly wanted an older actor, then 83-year-old Clint Eastwood and then 71-year-old Harrison Ford, to take on the role.
When Keanu Reeves became involved with the project, he sent the script to Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, who he had worked with on The Matrix trilogy. The pair would become co-directors of the first film. It was also recently revealed that Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria put up $6 million of her own money into getting the movie made, just hours before the film was about to miss its financial deadline.
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