John Wick: Chapter 4 Sound Team Created 'A Bespoke Head Explosion' For Each Headshot [Exclusive]

With a lead character who delivers roughly a hundred times more shots to the head than actual lines of dialogue, the emphasis on sound design, sound editing, and sound mixing is of paramount importance. As Keanu Reeves has continued to battle his way through four "John Wick" films, the action set pieces have now reached a thunderous crescendo while John Wick himself grows quieter and more stoic. In "John Wick: Chapter 4," Reeves may, in fact, speak the fewest amount of words in the entire series. That plays to Reeves' strengths as an emotive, physical actor and also inadvertently highlights the sights and sounds of the "Wick"-verse. 

As a result, Reeves remains one of the most humble superstars, sharing the limelight with the technicians working tirelessly to bring this meticulously designed world to life. The sound of all the gunshots firing out from all different models of weaponry alone is enough to make your head spin. Helping to keep track of all those countless audio samples are Supervising Sound Editor Mark Stoeckinger and Re-recording Mixer Casey Genton from Formosa Group — one of the leading companies in post-production audio. /Film's Ryan Scott spoke to both artists in a telling interview that offers up a great deal of insight into just how much goes into the sound work of a major action franchise. (A snippet of that conversation is found below.)

Obviously, it should quickly be mentioned that the entire sound department deserves a ton of credit for their accomplishments here. Their efforts should wind up blowing audiences all the way to the back of the theater after the world sees "John Wick: Chapter 4" over the weekend. 

In his interview with /Film, Mark Stoeckinger got into the details about the number of separate gunshot sounds we hear in the movie. "There's probably, between the shot and the hit and the heads and all, there's probably 12 to 15 sounds that make up [a headshot in the film]," he said.

Although "John Wick: Chapter 4" earns every minute of its nearly three-hour runtime, that doesn't seem like a lot of sounds to choose from to accommodate the size and scope of such an epic action film. Sure, there are plenty of clashing samurai swords, bow and arrow strikes, and an attacking dog to break up the staggering amount of inventive gunplay this time around, but there are still (if I were to hazard a guess) at least a thousand or so gunshots blasting out of the theater speakers. 

If those 12 to 15 sounds were isolated, it may be easier to tell them apart. Most of the assassins on the playing field are probably using the same firearm, so it does make sense if they sound extremely similar. That also allows for the weapons that John Wick uses to stand out even more, including the apex fighting pistol called the Pit Viper, which was made exclusively for "Chapter 4." Wick also picks up a Dragons Breath shotgun for one of the movie's most thrilling and visually inventive fight scenes.

Each shot to the head is slightly tweaked to give it more immediacy and believability from scene to scene, as Casey Genton pointed out when speaking about the mixing process. Piggybacking off of Mark Stoeckinger's comments above, Genton said:

"And they are all different too. Some of them are a little more impactful and bone crunchy and some of them are a little more splatty, they have a little bit of spray on them or blood spill. And it's those kinds of subtle details that I think make those moments in the 'Wick' movies a standout element that it's not the same thing every time."

It's impressive, although not at all surprising, that the sound department goes to great lengths to create unique sounds for a franchise that continues to raise the bar on every aspect of action filmmaking. "It certainly isn't canned and it's like it's kind of a bespoke head explosion for each one," Genton added, highlighting the fact that every gunshot sound is essentially custom-made. 

As an avowed horror fan, hearing Genton use the descriptors "bone crunchy" and "more splatty" immediately brings a smile to my face. That being said, no matter how you feel about guns in our society today, hopefully these little touches make the world of "John Wick" seem different and more hyperreal than our own. It's not just the mythology of the "Wick"-verse that adds to the feeling that it exists in some parallel world where the criminal underground is free to cause havoc on the surface. All of the tiny adjustments in sound have a huge impact that adds another imaginative layer to everything that's happening visually and physically as Keanu Reeves tries to stay alive for just one more sunrise.