MOVIE NEWS – Part of the unstoppable success of John Wick can be traced back to Keanu Reeves’s bad memory: he couldn’t remember the film’s original title, so the name he improvised became official. That little accident ended up generating millions of dollars in free publicity for the studio.

When John Wick was first introduced to Hollywood distributors, nearly everyone turned it down without hesitation. Only Lionsgate showed any interest, but even then, their offer was so low that the creators assumed the movie would go straight to video. Against all odds, a small team of determined people turned things around, and the movie went on to earn four times its production budget — and that was just the beginning.

Interestingly, the film wasn’t originally called John Wick at all. Its working title was Scorn, but Keanu Reeves reportedly disliked it and kept forgetting it during interviews, instead calling the project John Wick. Lionsgate quickly embraced the change, calculating that the switch earned them about seven million dollars’ worth of free media exposure.

The franchise’s four films, made for a combined budget of 235 million dollars, have grossed over a billion dollars worldwide. Unsurprisingly, Lionsgate continues to expand the John Wick universe with sequels, prequels, and spin-offs — a remarkable turnaround for a movie that nobody initially wanted under the name Scorn.

Source: 3djuegos