A John Wick 2 Stunt Gone Wrong Cut An Entire Car In Half – /Film

Keanu Reeves is, as second unit director Darrin Prescott notes in a Vanity Fair video, “probably the best actor driver in the business.” But when it came to the Mustang breakout scene, the “John Wick: Chapter 2” team brought in a professional to handle the trickier stunts, such as when Wick jumps his car sideways out of the warehouse.

Jeremy Fry was the stunt driver tasked with pulling off this maneuver. A seasoned pro who’s worked on everything from the “Fast and Furious” movies to the “Bourne” series, Fry was keen to make the stunt the best it could be. He told METRO how he’d seen a stunt in the film “Big Hero 6” in which a car makes a jump and turns sideways, and mentioned this to Prescott, who gave the green light. But actually doing it proved difficult even for someone of Fry’s experience.

In the director’s commentary for “Chapter 2,” which has also yielded such gems as the revelation that the “John Wick” creatives spent thousands of dollars on a shot of dog poop, director Chad Stahelski explained, “The first take [Fry] missed and he cut [the car] in half. It took him a little while to recover. Our stunt coordinator, Darrin Prescott, didn’t miss a beat. He’s just like, ‘Go get the second one!'”

Fry recalled things from his perspective, telling METRO: “The door was 20 feet wide, and the car was about 18 feet long. So if I was coming out if I happen to be sideways, I only had a foot on either end at speed to get the car out the door.” After basically ripping the entire front of the car off on his first try, Fry said he was physically fine but added, “Emotionally I was destroyed.”