How Eva Longoria secretly saved ‘John Wick’ at the last minute

Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria has become a Hollywood power producer, but the crew behind her first project, action megahit John Wick, didn’t even know she was involved.

“We were financing independently to get the bond, but one of the investors couldn’t raise the money in time,” director Chad Stahelski told Business Insider in a recent interview for the film’s 10th anniversary. “She came to the rescue and she provided the gap financing, literally less than 24 hours before we had to lock the doors on the movie and walk away.”

Stahelski explained that producer Basil Iwanyk didn’t reveal how the sudden financial windfall came to be or who provided it — the John Wick crew were all simply grateful to be able to finish the film. But after the film released to massive success, “Basil took us out to dinner, and we were laughing about all the bulls— that happened, and he said, ‘By the way, funny story, you know who gap financed you? Eva Longoria.’ We were were like, ‘What!'”

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Stahelski said he and producer David Leitch took Longoria out for a well-deserved dinner at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont after they learned of their secret collaboration. “She was laughing going, ‘I didn’t think it was going to work,'” he remembered. When he ran into her later on a red carpet, Longoria told him, “‘Wow, that was the best money I’ve ever spent.’ It paid back significantly for her,” he noted.

The John Wick franchise, which now includes four films and a streaming series spinoff, has proven to be a financial juggernaut and a critical darling. But it was far from a safe bet when the film entered production in 2014.

Star Keanu Reeves was the film’s main selling point, but his box office pull had considerably weakened since his glory days in the 1990s. He was coming off the commercial failure of the samurai epic 47 Ronin and the failure to launch his directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi, to the heights he’d envisioned.

John Wick was Stahelski’s directorial debut. He was revered for his stunt work on films like The Crow, and was part of the second-unit crew on films like The Expendables 2 and After Earth. But as a director he was totally untested, and John Wick was producers Leitch and Derek Kolstad’s first major film too.

John Wick ended up grossing $86 million on a budget between $20-30 million. Each of the successive sequels have been massively profitable too, with John Wick: Chapter 4 earning a staggering $440 million over a $100 million budget.

Longoria founded her production company, UnbeliEVAble Entertainment (now Hyphenate Media Group), in 2005, and produced series like Telenovela and films like the documentary Reversing Roe.

Stahelski said that he’s eager to collaborate with Longoria on an actioner of her own, saying “She wants to for sure, she wants to do action…. I would love to work with her; we’re trying to find something.”