‘John Wick’ Meets ‘Slow Horses’ in the 115-Minute Hit Being Removed From HBO Max

Published Nov 14, 2026, 8:15 PM EST

Rohan Naahar is a News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema. 

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Not long after the breakout success of John Wick, one of its co-directors made a similar movie that many believed could be part of the same universe. Even though the movie in question was set during the Cold War, theories were floated about how its protagonist could have crossed paths with a young John Wick. The movie in question was directed by David Leitch, who was uncredited for his work on the original John Wick and has forged his own path after collaborating with Chad Stahelski on that iconic franchise-starter. Interestingly, his Cold War-set spy thriller was a bigger hit than the original John Wick, but despite talks of a sequel, none was produced.

The film is currently streaming on HBO Max in the United States, but only for a little while longer. Released in 2017, it follows a spy who must track down a list of mysterious individuals on the eve of the Berlin Wall's collapse. Charlize Theron played the lead role, two years after cementing herself as one of the biggest action stars in the world thanks to the critically acclaimed Mad Max: Fury Road.

Theron was joined by an eclectic cast that also included James McAvoy, John Goodman, and Toby Jones. Interestingly, Jones was also a part of the ensemble of the critically acclaimed Cold War spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, headlined by Gary Oldman and featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Colin Firth, and others. Leitch's movie combined the intricate espionage thrills of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with the fluid action of John Wick — it received particular praise for a centerpiece one-take action sequence set on a stairway.

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Collider · Action Heroes Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner? Ten questions · five legends · one partner

Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive: with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably should not work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back. Choose your channel

Rambo

James Bond

Indiana Jones

John McClane

Ethan Hunt

Find your partner

Mission clock00:10 remaining

Question 01 of 10THE MISSION

01 You are dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.

ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain by instinct and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humor while everything falls apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we are walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity and the right exit already arranged.

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Question 02 of 10TRAVEL STYLE

02 You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.

AOn foot through terrain nobody else would attempt. I move where vehicles cannot follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else: borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget I will not explain until it is needed. EBy whatever is available. I have driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method.

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Question 03 of 10UNDER PRESSURE

03 You are cornered and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what somebody is really made of.

ADisappears into the environment, comes around behind them, and has it finished before I have moved. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a bluff and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. EShuts it down with maximum efficiency and minimum words. They were already three moves ahead.

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Mission clock00:07 remaining

Question 04 of 10DOWNTIME

04 The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who somebody is when the pressure drops is who they really are.

AThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. BA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that one artifact matters to human civilization. CPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a film neither of you was watching anyway. DA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning and somehow becomes the most fun you have had all week.

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Question 05 of 10COMMUNICATION

05 How do you want your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between a partner and a liability.

APrecise and minimal. Tell me what I need and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry. Keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic, but always with useful information buried in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan covering every variable I have not thought of yet. EBarely at all. Silence is a language and they speak it fluently.

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Question 06 of 10THE VILLAIN

06 Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced and holds the upper hand. How should your partner go at them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.

AInfiltrate the inner circle, learn everything, and take them apart from inside before they know we are there. BStudy the historical pattern. Every villain of this type has a weakness written down somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The longer they monologue, the more time I have to work out how to beat them. DGo straight at them, directly, using every inch of the terrain. EFind the one thing they have not accounted for, because there is always one, and make sure we are holding it.

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Question 07 of 10LOYALTY

07 It goes badly wrong and you are stranded somewhere hostile. What do you trust your partner to do? Who somebody is when you need them most is the only thing that counts.

ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anybody knows they were there. BHave been working the extraction since the moment I vanished. The plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later. I would do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I am out. They do not leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it.

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Mission clock00:03 remaining

Question 08 of 10TOOLKIT

08 What does your ideal partner bring that you could not replace? A great partner fills the gap you did not know you had.

ATechnology that should not exist yet and the training to use it in any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural, and the scars that prove it has been tested. CKnowledge of history, language and culture that makes them priceless where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room on earth and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that will not accept a situation is hopeless, and the improvisation to back it up.

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Mission clock00:02 remaining

Question 09 of 10THE COST

09 Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? Nobody comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.

AA partner who never fully switches off, always watching exits and counting threats, even at dinner. BA partner who does the job brilliantly and has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be, and always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic and ruin we pass, which slows the whole thing down. EA partner who was never built for this and knows it, but turns up anyway, every time, unasked.

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Mission clock00:01 remaining

Question 10 of 10THE LAST STAND

10 Final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.

AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world is not ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all. Just a look that means you both already know what happens next. CA plan I do not fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, laid out in thirty seconds. DA piece of historical context that reframes the whole situation and says exactly what to do. ESomebody who steps forward instead of back, because that is who they have always been.

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Reveal my partner

Partner assignedYour perfect partner is

Olive channel locked

Rambo The 1982 original You will never need to ask whether he has your back. You will just know.

Your partner does not talk much, does not need to, and will have counted every threat around you before you finish your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics. He is a force shaped by survival, loyalty and an endurance that no amount of training produces on its own. He does not leave people behind. What you get is the most quietly ferocious partner imaginable, somebody who went through what would have broken anybody else and decided to keep going. Why he is your partner

• He reads ground the way other people read a room.
• He will stand between you and the worst of it without discussing it.
• He says almost nothing, and never the wrong thing.

From the Collider file

• The 1982 original came from David Morrell's 1972 novel, which ends very differently.
• Stallone cut most of his own dialogue in the edit to make the character nearly silent.
• Five films across thirty-seven years, from 1982 to the fifth in 2019.

Says little Leaves nobody Built to endure

Gold channel locked

James Bond Dr. No, 1962 He has survived things that have no business being survivable, and he does it with style.

Your partner arrives perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story convincing enough that you will need a moment to recall what is true. Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he walks into and the most disarmingly charming, which is the whole point. He works in layers, where nothing is what it looks like and every advantage gets used without apology. You will never be bored. You will occasionally be furious. Why he is your partner

• He is better in the room than he is on paper, and he is excellent on paper.
• He will not explain the plan, and the plan will work.
• He treats charm as a tool, and it is a remarkably effective one.

From the Collider file

• Eon has made twenty-five Bond films since Dr. No in 1962, across six actors.
• Denis Villeneuve is directing the next one for Amazon MGM, which took creative control in 2025.
• The search for the new 007 was still running through 2026, with screen tests under way.

Charm as a tool Always briefed Unbothered

Tan channel locked

Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981 A scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual pairing and a very effective one.

Your partner knows the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is the most important object in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless and occasionally impossible, and also one of the most genuinely resourceful people you could have beside you. He hates snakes and gets attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It will not matter. Why he is your partner

• He has read the thing nobody else thought to read.
• He will risk the whole plan for the artifact, and be right about half the time.
• He improvises better than most people prepare.

From the Collider file

• The Cairo swordsman scene was improvised on the day because Harrison Ford had dysentery.
• Raiders was filmed in about 73 days, which was fast even in 1981.
• Dial of Destiny in 2023 was Ford's fifth and last outing, at the age of eighty.

Knows the history Reckless scholar Improviser

Red channel locked

John McClane Die Hard, 1988 His superpower is stubbornness and his contingency plan is improvisation.

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything resembling the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and a flat refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it plainly is. John McClane is the great accidental hero of action cinema, a man whose capacity to absorb more than anybody should and keep going would be alarming if it were not so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will come through. Why he is your partner

• He turns whatever is in the room to his advantage.
• He is funniest when things are at their worst.
• He has never once agreed that it is over.

From the Collider file

• Die Hard came from Roderick Thorp's novel Nothing Lasts Forever, a sequel to a book filmed in 1968.
• Nakatomi Plaza is Fox Plaza, which was the studio's own headquarters at the time.
• Bruce Willis was a television comedy actor then, and a long way down the casting list.

Pure stubbornness Improvises Complains throughout

Blue channel locked

Ethan Hunt Mission: Impossible, 1996 The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

Your partner has run seventeen scenarios before you finished the briefing, and the one he settled on involves at least two things that should not be physically possible. Ethan Hunt works at the outer edge of human capability, technically and physically, and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organizations that should not exist. He is not easy to know and he will never tell you everything. He will carry the weight anyway. Why he is your partner

• He takes the risk himself rather than assigning it.
• He is three moves ahead and will not say which three.
• He treats your survival as the actual objective.

From the Collider file

• Cruise hung off the side of an Airbus A400M at a thousand feet for the opening of Rogue Nation.
• The HALO jump in Fallout took 106 takes, filmed at dusk for the light.
• The Final Reckoning in 2025 was the eighth film, and was sold as the last.

Takes the risk Never explains Finishes it

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Mission filed byCOLLIDERCollider.com · The Movies Desk

Here's How Long You Have Left to Watch the Spy Thriller on HBO Max

We're talking, of course, about Atomic Blonde. The film received mostly positive reviews and is now sitting at a "Certified Fresh" 79% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The aggregator website's consensus reads, "Atomic Blonde gets enough mileage out of its stylish action sequences — and ever-magnetic star — to make up for a narrative that's somewhat less hard-hitting than its protagonist." Atomic Blonde generated $100 million worldwide against a reported budget of $30 million.

Leitch quickly moved on to bigger budget projects; he went on to direct Deadpool 2, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, Bullet Train, and The Fall Guy. This week, he'll release the action-heist movie How to Rob a Bank. Leitch is already working on his next project, the meta-action film Jason Statham Stole My Bike. You can watch Atomic Blonde on HBO Max until December 1, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

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  Lorraine Broughton

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  David Percival

An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.