'John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum' Built Its Biggest Fight Scene With the Help of VR

The glass office scene with John Wick battling the group of ninja-assassins was undoubtedly one of the biggest fight scenes of the film series, so it comes as no surprise that the whole sequence and set took an incredible amount of effort to plan out. In an interview with afters & befores, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum‘s concept illustrator Alex Nice revealed that the entire set was actually constructed in virtual reality first to enable a better planning process, explaining that conventional concept art wasn’t sufficient for such an action-packed scene from director Chad Stahelski.

“It was immediately apparent that a set like this is just such a challenge in planning, especially for a director like Chad who does such high action choreographed scenes,” Nice said. “You can imagine how confusing it is, like, where’s the glass wall compared to the other glass walls? Just getting your bearings mentally, even with the plans, was really a big challenge at the very beginning.”

The final VR 3D model of the entire set included proxy fighters and even the ability to mock-fight. This was made possible using Epic Games‘ Unreal Engine 4, along with other proprietary tools the concept illustrator built alongside his partner Matan Abel. The video above — posted by Nice himself — takes you through a virtual tour of the VR set built for the blockbuster. The physical set ultimately cost $4 million USD to build.

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