‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ Features Another Ass-Kicking Dog

Director Chad Stahelski breaks down the behind-the-scenes process that makes it possible for the dogs to take part in a ‘John Wick’ movie. Ever since the John Wick franchise’s inception, dogs have been an important part of the story. The first one, of course, was Daisy the Beagle, which pretty much set the whole thing into motion. In John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, however, the canines were taken to the next level and used as deadly weapons by Sofia (Halle Berry). The new trailer for John Wick: Chapter 4 reveals that more ruthless dogs are coming, and franchise director Chad Stahelski has a lot to say about them.

During an exclusive interview with Collider’s own Editor-in-Chief Steve Weintraub, Stahelski broke down the behind-the-scenes process that makes it possible for the dogs to take part in all the craze that is a John Wick movie. Just like everyone else, they need to get trained for their action sequences – and this means that for many stunt performers, their daily job is to… play with dogs:

“Well, the [new] character of the dog is a her, but we had, let’s see, three females and two male dogs to comp all one dog together, depending on what the stunt, or the gag, or the acting bit was. This time we learned a lot from last time, but we wanted a little bit more out of this one in specialty stuff. We had the dog, I think it was just over five months, to work with cast and on stunts. It’s just when you’re bringing in the stunt teams, and we have different stunt teams on this one because it’s so much bigger, the dog is just like friends. 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.”

We’ll have to wait a little while to find out how the dog stunts play out, since John Wick: Chapter 4 hits theaters in late March. However, John Wick fans have a lot to get excited about, since the spin-off movie Ballerina starring Ana de Armas (No Time to Die) is currently in production, as well as the prequel series The Continental. In both stories, the hotel for killers will play an important part just like it does in the flagship movies, and Keanu Reeves and Ian McShane are slated to reprise their roles in Ballerina.

John Wick premiered in 2014 and quickly became a surprise hit. The title character was a retired hitman who was thrown back into the underworld of assassins against his will, and as the franchise expands, we’re getting to find out about the organization he used to work for, how they operate, and how good he is at killing people. Aside from Reeves and McShane, John Wick: Chapter 4 will also feature Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Donnie Yen, Lance Reddick, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Shamier Anderson, Natalia Tena, and Bill Skarsgård.