The Louvre Made Sure John Wick Wouldn't Shoot Any Art Before Signing On For Chapter 4

As a landmark of Paris and the world's most visited art museum — with over 10 million annual visitors before the pandemic, according to the BBC — the Louvre has been featured in a number of Hollywood films. In 2005, for instance, museum officials reluctantly allowed the makers of "The Da Vinci Code" to shoot inside the Louvre, with the movie adapting a scene from Dan Brown's bestselling book where symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) walks into a grisly murder scene with a body posed like Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Vitruvian Man." More recently, in 2017, the opening scene of "Wonder Woman" showed Gal Gadot's heroine strolling past the glass pyramid in the Louvre's main courtyard and into the museum.

"John Wick: Chapter 4" is merely the latest in a long line of movies to shoot in and around the Louvre, but given the title character's penchant for gun fu fighting, Parisians and art lovers everywhere had reason to be concerned. After all, just last December, Netflix viewers saw the Louvre's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, destroyed in "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery." And John Wick (Keanu Reeves) already turned one European museum gala into the site of a raging shootout in "John Wick: Chapter 2." After filming inside the Louvre for "John Wick: Chapter 4," returning director Chad Stahelski told Collider:

"I didn't push it quite that far. Let's just say we shot a really cool scene in the Louvre. You start shooting and blowing s*** up next to a Caravaggio, they get a little edgy. But no, they were wonderful. They let us come in and do a great scene there."

Museums are usually quiet spaces, and just like libraries, John Wick has been known to invade those, too, for knock-down, drag-out fights. "John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum" opened with a long-legged hitman named Ernest shushing Mr. Wick in the library even as he pummeled him.

For his ballet biopic "The White Crow," director and actor Ralph Fiennes shot in the Louvre after it was closed, but while the "John Wick" series may have an Ana de Armas-led spin-off called "Ballerina" in the pipeline, it's a different kind of movie experience. Despite the franchise's action-heavy nature, though, moviegoers shouldn't necessarily expect to see Keanu Reeves busting heads or brandishing any weapons inside the Louvre in "John Wick: Chapter 4." In fact, it sounds like the Louvre, much like the Continental Hotel in the "John Wick" films, is more of a talking zone where assassins need to check their weapons at the door.

When asked if "John Wick: Chapter 4" is doing a dialogue scene in the Louvre, Chad Stahelski told Collider, "That's the first thing they asked, too. And they laughed, 'You're not going to shoot anything, are you?' I was like, 'I don't know. Can I?' And I was like, 'Just kidding. We just want to shoot in the Louvre.'"

The moral of the story: shooting in the Louvre is possible. Shooting up the Louvre, on the other hand, is liable to get Mr. Wick excommunicado again.

"John Wick: Chapter 4" is in theaters on March 24, 2023.