John Wick: Chapter 4 had what is easily one of the most epic fight scenes in the entire franchise. In the movie, John Wick had to fight up a flight of steps, only to get knocked down and have to fight his way back up again. With the making-of-documentary Wick is Pain hitting in 2025, it brought a lot of the behind-the-scenes moments from the franchise, which showed how groundbreaking it was back to life again. This includes one of the most difficult scenes to shoot, the stair fight scene from the fourth movie where Wick was trying to get to his final fight before it was too late.

In John Wick: Chapter 4, John challenged the Marquis to a duel, which would free John from his obligations to the High Table and end the hunt that has gone on through the last two movies. But for this to matter, of course, he had to reach the duel first, for it to matter and this involved getting there by going up an almost endless flight of stairs in Paris, and finding endless ᴀssᴀssins waiting there, fighting him every step of the way. It took a full week to shoot this amazing fight scene, and it remains the one scene most people remember most from the final movie.

How John Wick’s Team Came Up With The Fourth Movie’s Steps Scene

Influences Included High Noon & Buster Keaton

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) had to make it to the Sacré-Cœur in Paris by sunrise for the dueling-pistols battle with the Marquis (Bill Skarsgård). If John is late, both Winston (Ian McShane) and Wick will be killed. Of course, there was no way to make this easy on John, but the filmmakers found a way to make it nearly impossible with one of the most dazzling fight scenes of the franchise. John had to go up a flight of stairs full of ᴀssᴀssins. He was then knocked down to the bottom and had to fight his way up again.

Director Chad Stahelski said that they made John Wick fighting multiple trained ᴀssᴀssins and winning look realistic by keeping the fighters moving. He compared it to Jackie Chan, who is always running and fighting in his movies, which makes it extremely difficult for his opponents to pin him down. John Wick: Chapter 4 accomplished something similar with the roundabout fight in the movie with all the moving cars. That led to the concept behind the staircase battle.

Stahelski said that after he came up with the idea to shoot the final scene at the Sacré-Cœur, and he saw the stairs, he knew what they had to do. He mentioned the race to the church in the classic Western film High Noon was on his mind, so much that he named Donnie Yen’s character Caine, whereas Gary Cooper was Kane in High Noon. He explained that he wanted the fight and fall to be reminiscent of silent movie star Buster Keaton (via Screencrush).

“All I could think about was Buster Keaton. How would Buster Keaton do it? Buster would walk all the way up, he’d fight his way up, he’d trip at the top step, he’d fall all the way back down, then look back up and go “F—.” I always look at it from a silent film perspective. And that’s how it all came about.”

It is also important to note that the stairwell wasn’t just a fun stunt that Stahelski thought would look cool in his movie. It was also a metaphor for what John Wick had gone through in these movies. The director said it “just fit with the location, the story, the theme. It all just came together,” calling it “a metaphor for the movie as a whole.“

Where The Steps Scene In John Wick: Chapter 4 Was Filmed

The Director Found The Stairs By Accident

Interestingly, Stahelski’s influence on using the Sacré-Cœur in Paris as one of John Wick 4’s filming locations came from a very unexpected place. “I’m a big fan of Amélie, believe it or not,” Stahelski said. “And that film’s third act starts at Sacré-Cœur. So I put on all my location scout lists; ‘I want to see Sacré-Cœur!’ And on the second day, we saw Sacré-Cœur, and we walked up the main steps, and I‘m like ‘Oh, that’s cool, we’ll figure something out here.’“

However, things changed when they showed up to plan out the shoot. They looked at the giant steps leading to the Sacré-Cœur and then tried to figure out how to do it. They walked around a corner and saw a different flight of stairs. He said that when he saw them, all he could think about was The Exorcist. He remembered the moment with the falling down the stairs in that movie and said that he had to use those steps instead.

“Keanu, he hates stairs. Just to make him suffer, we’re going to make him walk all the way up. And before he gets to the top step, I’m going to knock him back down and we’re going to do the biggest stair fall you’ve ever seen. And I’m going to make him climb it up again with Donnie Yen.”

John Wick 4’s Steps Scene Took A Week To Shoot

Chad Stahelski Kept Changing The Choreography

This all led to the shooting of the scene, which took Chad Stahelski a week to film. The director said that he prefers to shoot everything in order, which made choreographing and planning the step fight very difficult. This is not only what made it take so long to shoot. Stahelski said that he often changes the fight choreography on set after the cast has already practiced and perfected the planned moves. That happened on this specific fight scene.

“I thought the [stairwell] fight was going to turn out one way, and then realized that I was wrong. We had a plan, but that plan lasted two days and went out the f—ing window when we saw how cool the stairs were. So yeah, you try to stay in order and you create as you go so you don’t backend yourself. I’m a big fan of that.”

The Stuntman Who Fell Down The Stairs

The Man’s Name Is Vincent Bouillon

The most shocking moment of this specific fight scene was when John Wick made it to the top of the stairs. Viewers believed he was ready to move on to the next step, but then he ended up getting hit again and fell all the way back down to the bottom of the stairs and had to fight his way up again. This was the Buster Keaton moment that Chad Stahelski was so excited to see. Of course, it wasn’t Keanu Reeves who fell down all those stairs.

This is the job of a stuntperson. In this case, it was Vincent Bouillon, the man who served as Reeves’ double most of the time. Stahelski even had Bouillon do it twice so that he had enough footage to cut it together properly. “You’re with some of the best stunt people in the world, and you’re all standing looking at a staircase,” Stahelski said. “They’re not thinking ‘What’s the easiest way down there?’ They’re thinking “F*** me, we’re about to create a legend.” What resulted was John Wick: Chapter 4‘s most memorable scene.

Source: Screencrush