While a great deal of the focus of Netflix and all the other streaming services is on producing new original content, my favorite thing about them has always been that they act as libraries for older movies, allowing me to watch my favorite movies for the 100th time, or allowing me to easily catch movies i missed for the first time.
This week, I noticed that Wanted, a 2008 action movie starring James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie, was now available with my Netflix subscription. I remember wanting to see the movie when it originally came out, but for whatever reason, that never happened. I never got around to actually watching, hell, I only watched Jaws for the first time recently, so I took the opportunity to do so, and discovered that it’s a pretty fun action flick, with a remarkably stacked cast. Although part of the reason I loved it may have been all the ways it reminded me of my favorite modern action franchise.
Wanted Gave Me Serious John Wick Vibes
One of my concerns sitting down to watch Wanted was that, in the more than a decade since it was released, the action, as cutting edge as it may have been at the time, may have become dated. These days, I compare basically any movie action sequence to the best of the John Wick franchise, and even today, most movies come up short by that metric.
Wanted’s action isn’t as good as the best of John Wick. It’s not even on par with middle-of-the-road John Wick. However, what surprised me was how much Wanted felt like almost a prototype John Wick, as many of the details of the older film would find their way into my favorite franchise. These connections are almost certainly unintentional. Neither Chad Stahelski nor David Leitch worked on Wanted as stunt performers, but that makes the connections all the more intriguing.
It Has A Secret Society Of Assassins
The most obvious connection between the two is that both Wanted and John Wick have stories built around secret societies of professional assassins. Wanted has The Fraternity, while John Wick’s organization is called the High Table. The Fraternity is specifically referenced as being 1,000 years old. The exact age of the High Table is unclear, but it’s been indicated to be even older.
The High Table is actually one of my favorite parts of the entire John Wick franchise. I love the way the movies have built it up over time, the way it has its own currency and even its own hotels. The world-building of Wanted isn’t nearly on that level. This is likely due to the fact that the original comic book source material sees the group as actual supervillains, so the assassin element is grafted on. Perhaps if Wanted had ever received the attempted sequels, things could have been expanded upon in a way to make The Fraternity as intriguing as the High Table.
Wanted Has Its Version Of The Bowery King
John Wick has some pretty eccentric characters throughout the franchise, but none are quite as much fun as The Bowery King. Lawrence Fishburne’s character is the leader of a group under the High Table who often play the parts of the area’s homeless population, leading to them looking less clean-cut than John Wick and others. The Bowery King uses pigeons as a way to gather and send information to his people.
If the Bowery King’s pigeons are “rats with wings,” then he’s not that different from The Exterminator, a member of the Fraternity who has an affinity for actual rats. It’s not hard to imagine that in the John Wick universe, The Exterminator would be one of the Bowery King’s soldiers. Although I’m not sure the Bowery King would have sacrificed his pigeons in the way that Wanted kills a lot of rats.
It’s Even Got Common
One of the best things Wanted has going for it is its incredible cast. It’s got James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie, and Morgan Freeman in major roles. Terrance Stamp is there in a solid supporting role, and a very young Chris Pratt is there in a pre-Parks & Recreation appearance. There’s even an actor who would go on to be a big part of John Wick: Chapter 2.
Years before Common would appear in the first John Wick sequel as Cassian, he appeared in Wanted as a member of The Fraternity, simply called The Gunsmith. His role in Wanted is much smaller, but it’s not exactly hard to see that Cassian and The Gunsmith have a lot in… well, common.
The Final Action Sequence Is Very John Wick
At the end of the day, both John Wick and Wanted are movies focused on building great action sequences. That said, they come at them very differently. John Wick is all about practical stunt choreography, and while Wanted certainly has plenty of that, it’s equally concerned with its cool CGI bullet firing sequences, which are, without question, still pretty cool.
There isn’t necessarily an action sequence in Wanted I would compare favorably to anything in John Wick, although the big finale sequence, which sees James McAvoy’s character jump through a window and start mowing down everybody he sees, comes close. The sequence isn’t filmed in the same way a John Wick fight scene would be, but the concept, seeing the hero mowing down countless bad guys, picking up fresh guns along the way, and firing through the dead skull of a previous victim, is absolutely something we could see in the next John Wick movie, whenever it happens.
In all honesty, I wish I had seen Wanted back in 2008, as I probably would have enjoyed it more. In the years since, action cinema has been raised to a level that makes the movie feel like a product of its time. Still, Wanted was a step on the path that brought us to a world where the John Wick franchise exists, and did its part to inspire, however unintentionally, the best action movie franchise ever.
As recently as 2020, Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov expressed interest in still making the sequel. Perhaps if it ever happens, it can take some inspiration from John Wick.
