How Much Time Has Passed Since John Wick's Dog Died?
Contains spoilers for "John Wick: Chapter 4"
Nearly a decade has passed since the first "John Wick" film hit theaters, surprising audiences with a fresh take on action that defined the genre for the latter half of the 2010s. In fact, there have been two U.S. presidential elections, three recasts of the Joker, and around two dozen new iPhone models since Keanu Reeves' vengeful Boogeyman wiped Viggo (Michael Nyqvist) and Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen) off the map.
During that time, the subsequent and continuing Keanussance turned the '90s–2000s action star into a modern treasure. This uniquely positive and unanimous sentiment has lent itself perfectly to a Hollywood hungry for nostalgia-driven content, leading to the revival of the very properties that made Reeves famous some two to three decades prior.
Suffice it to say, time has marched on for better or worse in the real world. The "John Wick" timeline, however, is strangely complicated. After having watched all four films back-to-back — noting each dialogue hint, sunrise, healed wound, and trip across the globe — we approximate that the entirety of the "John Wick" series takes place within the surprisingly truncated span of 2 to 3 months.
Chapter 2 takes place shortly after the first film
It isn't stated explicitly, but editing choices made in the first "John Wick" film suggest that the entirety of the narrative takes place in just five days, assuming John's dog, Daisy, is killed the day after he receives her. Though some online speculate that a few days pass between the funeral and Iosef Tarasov's attack, it appears in the film as though John's first trip to buy dog food and Daisy's death happen within 24 hours of each other.
Given John's inhuman focus (as well as his identical wardrobe), it's probably safe to say that the time jump between "John Wick" and "John Wick: Chapter 2" is between one day and one week — enough time for John to "heal" (considering John heals way quicker than the average widower) and for Aurelio (John Leguizamo) to track down the car John borrows in the film's opening moments. In all, "Chapter 2" takes place over eight days.
John Wick and his wife likely die within a couple of months of each other
"Chapter 3 – Parabellum" makes our jobs a bit easier by starting immediately after the last film ends, continuing the one-hour countdown to John's excommunication in its first act. An interior time jump of one week (the amount of time Asia Kate Dillon's Adjudicator gives Laurence Fishburne's Bowery King to "settle his affairs") brings the total time span of "Chapter 3" to 11 days — the longest total in the franchise. In this same film, Winston (Ian McShane) also confirms that only a few weeks have passed since the events of "Chapter 1."
As for the fourth installment, time is looser. The downtime between chapters here could be as long as a month, and throughout the film, there are cuts that could arguably account for days at a time. Without getting too lost in extrapolations, however, it can reasonably be assumed that at least one week has passed between "Chapter 3" and "John Wick: Chapter 4" and that "Chapter 4" takes place in about a week itself.
This means John Wick dies as soon as 6–7 weeks after his dog and wife. In that same amount of time, he murders hundreds of trained killers, assassinates several powerful figures, and forever changes how the business will operate in the future.