John Wick directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch have revealed that Eva Longoria put up $6m in funding less than 24 hours before filming was to start, essentially saving the project from being shelved.
In an interview celebrating the film’s tenth anniversary, Stahelski and Leitch talked about the Desperate Housewives star’s investment to close funding they had lost.
“We were less than a week out and we lost almost $6m on a gap financing,” Stahelski told Business Insider. “We were financing independently to get the bond, but one of the investors couldn’t raise the money in time.”
Stahelski and Leitch as well as lead Keanu Reeves had already put up their own money while producer Basil Iwanyk had maxed out his personal credit cards to finance the film, he said.
Then the Creative Artists Agency, which was helping the filmmakers put together the money, offered some of its actors an opportunity to invest, which Longoria took up.
“Me, Keanu, and Dave had deferred, Basil had maxed his three credit cards, we all had put in everything, including Keanu. And we were still short. So we were shut down,” Stahelski said.
That is when Longoria “came to the rescue and provided the gap financing”.
“We didn’t know any of this. Basil never told Keanu or us. Literally less than 24 hours before we had to lock the doors on the movie and walk away, Basil said, ‘We’ve got the investor, we’ve locked the gap.’ We found out by the end of the movie, Basil took us out to dinner, and we were laughing about all the bullshit that happened, and he said, ‘By the way, funny story, you know who gap financed you? Eva Longoria.’ We were were like, ‘What!’”
The directors eventually took Longoria to lunch at the Chateau Marmont to thank her for saving John Wick.
“During the awards season last year, I ran into her on two different occasions at Academy events and we were reminiscing. She was like, ‘Wow, that was the best money I’ve ever spent.’ It paid back significantly for her,” said Leitch.
John Wick, released in 2014, was made on a budget of $20-30m and earned $86m at the box office. The film went on to spawn an entire franchise, with three sequels, all massively profitable. The most recent film,John Wick: Chapter 4, made $440m on a $100m budget.
Longoria’s production company UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, now Hyphenate Media Group, was founded in 2005, with John Wick as the first major credit as producer. The company went on to produce TV series Ready for Love, Telenovela, and Grand Hotel.