Script Dump - Untitled John Wick Intro

 Ephraim Belnap

A note:

This is a script for a hypothetical John Wick action scene. For the sake of not interfering with the movie chronology, let’s say it happens before any of the films, during Wick’s career as a hitman. 

There’s a few words about the music cues in here. Just roll with that, it helps pace out the action.  

JOHN WICK ACTION PROLOGUE 

FADE IN:

EXT. STREET OUTSIDE NIGHTCLUB - NIGHT 

Outside a boisterous nightclub, a large NEON SIGN advertising its presence. Across the street a CAR pulls up. A figure - JOHN WICK - emerges from it, seen from behind, wearing a BLACK SUIT. He crosses the street and reaches the front of the line. He waves a CARD with a Chinese character on it, and the BOUNCER let him skip the line and walk right in. 

CUT TO:

INT. NIGHTCLUB FLOOR 

We see a wide and full DANCE FLOOR, ringed by a section with tables, and a set of curling stairs that go up to an UPPER LEVEL that also rings around the dance floor. PURPLE and YELLOW lights flash. Loud MUSIC plays. People dance. At the end of the upper level, we see a set of DOUBLE DOORS marked VIP. 

CUT TO:

INT. VIP ROOM - INTERCUT

Inside the VIP section we see coffee tables and stripper poles. Beautiful, underfed WOMEN twirl slowly on them for a gang of Asian men smoking from HOOKAHS and chugging drinks. One is our bad guy - a middle-aged Asian man in a red shirt and grey suit, known only as THE BOSS. He sits in the center of his men. A woman slips during her routine and he yells angrily, throwing a BEER at her. 

CUT TO:

Wick moves across floor still unseen, noting GUARDS - he sees 1, 2, 3, 4 on the main floor. We go to upper levels and see eight or so more. Then the seven or so in the VIP room, and then a WINDOW in a room off of the VIP room that is open. 

CUT TO:

EXT. ALLEYWAY - INTERCUT

We cut to outside the window and see there’s a FIRE ESCAPE leading the ground. A possible escape.

CUT TO:

We see Wick’s eyes surveilling, looking. He dips into a corner and checks his arms - a GLOCK 34 on his right hip, a snub-nosed WEBLEY on his left hip, a five-inch STABBING KNIFE on one ankle, an AMMO BELT around his waist, a wicked-looking stretch of PIANO WIRE in one pocket, a strange-looking GRENADE we’ve never seen, a coat with bulletproof lining. 

Patdown finished, he moves across the room to another corner … and finds a FIRE ALARM. He waits a beat, and then pulls it, causing the alarm to go off and WHITE SIRENS to blare.

The music dies out, the crowd groans in anger. WATER SPOUTS start firing from the ceiling, soaking everyone present. The lights still flare. People trickle out ’til more than half are gone.

We see John’s face. He’s walking towards the foot of the stairs where the first guard is. We see his knife in his hand. 

Non-diegetic MUSIC starts up - a brisk, rolling bass beat in 4/4 time. 

He slashes lightning-fast and the man’s throat is opened. Wick doesn’t even stop walking as Guard #1 falls to the ground.

He gets halfway up the stairs as the guard there turns around and sees him, doing the same to him. Wick accelerates a little, trying to make the top. He makes it as the guards at the bottom level start noticing and moving towards the stairs. 

At the top there’s a cluster of three men. As the non-diegetic music ramps up, Wick takes on the three at once with his knife, twisting, slashing and stabbing them in less than ten seconds, them near-helpless before him.

We hear another music cue - a ramping-up SHRIEK - as Wick realizes he’s now noticed behind … and ahead. 

He draws his Glock, chambers a round, and starts shooting. 

The beat’s bass get louder. 

We see a WIDE SHOT of him in profile - a black outline lit by his gunshots. 

There are five men before the VIP room. He goes through them all. The two guards behind him only take an extra few seconds. The last guard before the doors he shoots once, and then throws over the railing, landing in the middle of the dance floor.

Inside the VIP room, no one has moved. The fire alarm isn’t in their room, and besides, that’s for other people. But they hear the shots. The Boss snaps out of it, realizes there’s danger. He stands up, gets his men up, tells them to shake off their highs in brusque Chinese. The women dancing look scared and he yells at them curtly in Chinese again, “Get out of here. Beat it.” They clear out.

Wick sees the women come out of the main doors, rushing past him for the entrance. They scream as they see the bodies he’s left. He looks at the doors, realizing they know he’s coming.

Inside, the Boss and his men are blearily looking at the doors. They’ve knocked over the furniture, creating rough cover. Some are unbuttoned, tousle-haired, unfocused. All are still armed with HANDGUNS. The Boss is the farthest back.

There’s a noise at the door and a figure comes bursting through them - a corpse of one of the men outside. The goons panic, shooting off a shot or two before realizing who it is, and seeing it fall face-down to the ground in front of them. They eye it for a second, worried. Then the Boss yells at a younger goon to flip the body over.

The goon advances, taps it, flips the body, and sees he has the strange-looking grenade from earlier strapped to his chest - a spring-loaded grenade whose spring has now been relieved by taking the corpse’s weight off of it.

The goon yells a warning in Chinese, “Look ou-“

The grenade goes off - it’s not a death grenade, it’s flash-bang. The sound drowns out the music momentarily, whites out the screen momentarily, then washes the screen in bright light. The goons stumble wildly, covering their eyes. In the panic and their highs, some practice poor trigger safety. One shoots his mate. Another shoots himself. The Boss sees this in his daze and looks perturbed.

THIS sets off the fire alarm in this room - the sprinklers start going off. And as the water comes down, the doors burst open and Wick enters. His Glock’s in his right, and his knife’s in his left, held under his right.

He mows through the room, slashing within one foot and shooting outside of it. The men die painfully and quickly, no match for him. The boss ducks down behind his flipped table and grabs at something. And as Wick finishes the last man and arrives at the Boss … the Boss catches his blade on a TABLE LEG he’s broken off. 

There’s a beat. Wick didn’t expect this. The music cuts out. And then the Boss yells and twists the leg, wrenching the knife out of Wick’s grasp! 

There’s no music for this final stretch.

Wick tries his Glock, but the Boss closes the distance, getting too close to be fired on, and twisting, managing to grasp the gun and fire it away from them, spending its last three shots. The Boss yells in exertion, but also anger, twisting Wick’s arm behind him and making him drop his Glock! Wick goes for his Webley, but the Boss spots it first and grabs it from his holster! He fires one shot at Wick, but Wick manages to turn and start grappling for control. He pushes him against a wall, gaining advantage, but the Boss empties the Webley an inch from Wick’s ear, making him flinch momentarily, and giving the Boss a split second of advantage to jump away. But the Webley now being empty.

The two face off, realizing the danger. The Boss contemptuously throws the Webley away. Then pulls his tie off, wrapping it around one fist. Wick, in kind, pulls out his piano wire, wrapping it around one hand.

The Boss attacks, giving strong karate-style punches, keeping his distance. He even lands a good one on Wick. Wick takes the hits and hits back. The two struggle, and the Boss manages to take Wick’s back, and loops his tie around Wick’s neck. Wick catches his hand in front of it, though. The Boss struggles to choke him for a moment, and then Wick, having baited him into this, flips the boss over his head.

They wrestle briefly, and Wick then takes the Boss’s back, this time with his much-deadlier piano wire. The Boss manages to intercept, but only with two fingers. As Wick gets his hooks in and starts choking, the Boss stops grunting and starts yelling, fear setting in. 

His fingers get constricted, cut, maimed, not enough to save him. His legs kick. A red line cuts across his throat. 

And his grunting lessens, and his kicks die out, and he stops making noise altogether. He slumps back, dead, his two fingers near-chopped off.

Wick rises to his feet, surveys the chaos, soaked and mussed. He breathes heavily. Looks down.

CUT TO:

Outside, FIREMEN arrive at the scene. We see bystanders looking at something, taking pictures, murmuring. One officer jumps out and looks at what they’re seeing. The Boss’s body, hanging from the neon sign outside the club, lifeless and unmoving.

CUT TO BLACK