- Ability over Appearance: The Adjudicator was originally intended to be very masculine, behemoth of a man, bald and with no eyebrows in the vein of Judge Holden. Then Keanu Reeves and Chad Stahelski were told of Asia Kate Dillon and found them so perfect for the role they changed the character to suit their build.
- Actor-Inspired Element:
- A surprising number of concepts for this movie came from Keanu Reeves. The idea of John Wick fighting on a horse, the sequence in the desert and even the Big Bad The Adjudicator were all apparently Reeves' idea either partially or completely.
- Zero was originally written as a more serious character, but after Mark Dacascos stepped into the role, he came up with some of Zero's more notable quirks and funnier moments. Of note, Dacascos is a real-life fanboy of Keanu Reeves himself, so Zero gushing over Wick is literally just his actor being in complete awe in the presence of his idol.
- The Adjudicator's Ambiguous Gender was suggested
by Asia Kate Dillon themself:Because there's nothing in the story that indicates that the Adjudicator had to be a cis person, a gender identity within the binary, I was like, "Well, I'm nonbinary, so let's make this character nonbinary."
- Celebrity Voice Actor: Just like the previous films, the Japanese dub has another celebrity in the cast, in this case, it's the TV and movie actress Midori Hagio as the Director, who some non-Japanese viewers can recognize her as Kaori Yamada from Godzilla Vs Mecha Godzilla.
- Creator Backlash: Downplayed, as director Chad Stahelski's never panned the movie outright, but while promoting John Wick: Chapter 4 he revealed that he empathized with the audience's frustrations of ending Parabellum on a Cliffhanger and wanted to give the series a proper conclusion with 4.
- Fake Nationality:
- Aside from some obvious examples, it turns out that John Wick (played by a man of Chinese-Hawaiian, English, Irish and Portuguese descent who was born in Lebanon) is a Ruska Roma from Belarus. Although the organization itself seems to only recruits orphans, so it's possible he was a orphan child from elsewhere raised by the Ruska Roma.
- Zero is heavily implied to be Japanese due to his profession as a sushi chef, him speaking Japanese, and his henchmen being themed after ninjas and are literally called "shinobi". Mark Dacascos is of mostly European, Chinese, Filipino, and Polynesian ancestry, and is only tangentially Japanese on his mother's side.note
- The Moroccan Sofia Al-Azwar is played by the very American (half-black, half-white, to be exact) Halle Berry.
- Aside from some obvious examples, it turns out that John Wick (played by a man of Chinese-Hawaiian, English, Irish and Portuguese descent who was born in Lebanon) is a Ruska Roma
- Foiler Footage: The trailers, as well as a publicity photo, features Sofia and her dogs in the lobby of the New York Continental. In the actual film, she never even sets foot in America.
- Follow the Leader: This film's motorcycle chase was conceived after Keanu Reeves and Chad Stahelski saw The Villainess and were impressed by the motorcycle stunts in that film. They set about trying to figure out how the other film pulled it off and decided to try and top it with their own sequence.
- In Memoriam: The end credits contain a dedication to Michael Nyqvist, who starred as Viggo in the first film and passed away shortly after Chapter 2 was released in 2017.
- Looping Lines: The Adjudicator's first confrontation with the Bowery King was looped due to the rain falling in the scene. Laurence Fishburne's dismissive laughter was kept as it was recorded on-set, resulting in a sudden shift in audio quality.
- Missing Trailer Scene: There is a shot of Sofia and her dogs walking through the New York Continental lobby in the first trailer. Sofia is only in Morocco in the film and never steps foot in the United States.
- The Other Darrin: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Gerardo Vásquez replaces Juan Carlos Molina as the Bowery King, and the Doctor is voiced by Pedro D'Aguillón Jr. instead of any of the voice actors who voiced him in the first movie's three dubs.
- The Other Marty: Hiroyuki Sanada as Zero, who was cast in the role but had to drop out when he didn't recover from prior surgery to his achilles tendon as fast as he hoped. Sanada was cast in the fourth film as a new character to make up for it.
- Promoted Fanboy:
- Halle Berry was a fan of the first two films and approached director Chad Stahelski before the script for Chapter 3 was even written, and told him to write a role for her because she was going to be in his film. To hear him tell it, she hired him, not the other way around.
- Asia Kate Dillon is a big fan of the first two films, and immediately jumped at the call when the production studio contacted them to play the Adjudicator. Their role in the production extended way past just playing the Adjudicator on-screen, however, as mentioned under Actor-Inspired Element above.
- And so was Mark Dacascos. Like Dillon, Dacascos too signed up even before he was handed the first draft of the script, since he loved the first two films so much.
- Queer Character, Queer Actor: Non-binary actor Asia Kate Dillon plays the (heavily implied to be) non-binary character The Adjudicator.
- Recycled Set: A portion of the climatic Continental shootout takes place in AIRE Ancient Baths, a location in TriBeCa that was also used for The Red Circle bath house in the first film.
- Refitted for Sequel: A fight set in New York's Chinatown was filmed for Chapter 2, but cut. Chad Stahelski has also stated that he had wanted to film a scene in Grand Central Station ever since the first film, but couldn't until now because of budget considerations.
- Shoot the Money: The glass house was a multi-million dollar studio build, and is featured in nearly twenty of the film's final forty minutes.
- Those Two Actors:
- This movie marks the fourth collaboration (after The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and Man of Tai Chi) between personal friends Keanu Reeves and stuntman/actor Tiger Chen, who shows up in this is as one of the assassins (the axe-wielding one who receives an Eye Scream).
- Make it Three. Morpheus and Neo reunite with the Keymaker sixteen years after their last film together.
- Throw It In!:
- While filming John and Zero's scene in the lounge, Mark Dacascos spontaneously decided to sit as close to Keanu Reeves as possible, and Reeves reacted in character with an annoyed glance and by moving to the chair. The director loved it so much that it made the final cut.
- Keanu was supposedly actually having trouble getting back up to fight the Shinobi, leading to the gag where they try to help him up only for him to motion to them that he's fine.
- What Could Have Been:
- Jennifer Beals, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria, Uma Thurman and Marisa Tomei were considered for the role of Sofia.
- Hiroyuki Sanada was considered for the part of Zero, but dropped out due to an injury. Zero was also radically rewritten once Mark Dacascos stepped in and added his Actor-Inspired Element. Sanada eventually landed a role in the fourth film to make up for this.
- In earlier versions of the story Sofia's attack dogs actually belonged to John.
- Keanu Reeves is a huge fan of Blood Meridian, and the original character of The Adjudicator was basically a homage to Judge Holden from said book (a bald man without eyebrows, absolutely huge, possibly supernaturally implacable). Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves both felt it wasn't working out and cycled through several ideas, eventually settling on Asia Kate Dillon, who is markedly different from that original conception (albeit still maintaining an aura of chilly menace and implacability).
- According to Chad Stahelski, the original intent of this film was to kill John Wick and end the franchise, which executives vetoed.
- Working Title: Originally John Wick: Chapter 3, then John Wick: Parabellum, before ultimately becoming John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.
- You Sound Familiar: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Sofia is voiced by Dulce Guerrero, who voiced Gianna D'Antonio in the previous film.
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