Chad Stahelski Finally Confirms The John Wick Timeline

John Wick might be superhumanly capable of taking on armies of highly-trained enemies, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get tired. In fact, Keanu Reeves' ability to convey the physical toll that comes with his character's quest for vengeance has been a highlight of the "John Wick" movies — helping to humanize the titular assassin when he could all too easily come off as a blank-faced, unfeeling psychopath.

Further emphasizing the sheer endurance it takes to consistently battle through waves of attackers is the way each film basically picks up from where the last left off. There is no easing back into the action with the second and third entries. Once "John Wick: Chapter 2" and "John Wick: Chapter 3" start, it's as if they've been playing out the whole time you've been doing other things and we're just dipping straight back into the ongoing action.

This means that over the course of three films packed with action movie majesty, John Wick has seemingly spent a lifetime traveling the globe and fighting for revenge, freedom, and eventually his life, when in fact it's only been a very short time.

Estimates of exactly how much time passes from the start of "John Wick" to the end of "John Wick: Chapter 3" have ranged from a month to a couple of weeks. Thankfully, with the arrival of "John Wick: Chapter 4," franchise director Chad Stahelski has clarified just how long Baba Yaga has been gun-fu-ing his way through the criminal underworld. And it's even shorter than you thought.

By the end of the third installment, Keanu Reeves' hitman sustains an injury even he can't just shake off, after being shot off a roof and falling several floors. The shooter, Ian McShane's Winston, seemingly fires at Wick to prove his loyalty to the High Table, the cabal of crime bosses that oversee global organized crime. Whether or not Winston meant to kill Wick, or risk seriously injuring him in order to potentially save his life, the result is that the assassin is hurt — pretty bad. So, at the start of "John Wick: Chapter 4" — potentially the pinnacle of modern action moviemaking — we'll have flashed forward quite a bit. Six months, in fact.

Director Chad Stahelski confirmed as much when he spoke to Collider, further revealing that although so much has happened in the John Wick timeline, a shockingly short amount of time has passed within its world. Asked about how long we've spent with John Wick thus far, Stahelski said:

"We figured the first three movies almost happened in like a week, week and a half, somewhere in there. That's my version, I think Keanu's is a little different, and I think ['Chapter 4'] is like six months later. So within a year, I think it all happens. I would say almost within seven to eight months.

So there you have it, the definitive answer as to how long it took John Wick to shoot his way through hordes of thugs, travel across continents, and go from legendary retired hitman to the most hunted man on the planet. That said, it sounds like Reeves has a different take on the timeline, and surely, he can't see things happening in a shorter time than Stahelski.

With Chad Stahelski open to making "John Wick 5," there will likely be a lot more unrestrained carnage to keep up with in the future. Whether that happens will likely depend on how "John Wick: Chapter 4" fares at the box office, but there's already massive hype for the film, which promises to up the ante in every way possible and finally pit Keanu Reeves against modern action legend Donnie Yen.

And with John Wick finally getting a six-month break between the all-out action of the first three films and this one, we're expecting to see him on top of his game for the fourth go-round. Interestingly enough, Stahelski was asked by Collider whether he'd ever considered keeping track of the John Wick timeline by using on-screen titles to show how much time had passed.

The director revealed that he did, in fact, consider doing just that with "John Wick: Chapter 2" but decided against it because it was too "goofy." That makes sense considering that while the John Wick franchise has embraced many action movie tropes, it usually finds a way to subvert them or put a new spin on them — just look at the epic fight scenes that push action choreography to new, balletic heights.

Having on-screen titles to keep track of time seems like it would not only have been too dull a blockbuster trope to include, it would have broken up the rapid pace of the films.