Actress Eva Longoria rescued the production of famed movie franchise John Wick when it was on the brink of shutting down for good.
In the middle of shooting for John Wick, the first movie in the series that stars Keanu Reeves, the production ran out of money. Up stepped Longoria with $6 million in funding. In exchange she received a guarantee that she’d be among the first investors to get paid back, according to Business Insider.
The story, as told by the movie’s directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, was that as they were wrapping production they found out there was a $6 million shortfall in the budget. At this point their producer Basil Iwanyk began scrambling to find someone—anyone—who could plug their financial hole just until the movie was finished. CAA, the powerhouse talent agency that was putting together the financing, reached out to some of its A-list clients. The deal eventually made its way to Longoria.
“She came to the rescue and she provided the gap financing,” Stahelski told Business Insider.
At the time, the movie was 24 hours away from shuttering completely, according to Stahelski. Iwanyk “had maxed his three credit cards”; both directors and Reeves had already “put in everything” to finance the movie before the 11th-hour funding from Longoria.
The investment almost certainly paid off handsomely for Longoria. While the exact details of her deal aren’t known, John Wick grossed $87 million at the global box office. The entire franchise—which began with the tale of Reeves as a retired hit man who avenges the brutal murder of his dog—includes three sequels to the original and has brought in over $1 billion worldwide.
“During the award season last year, I ran into her on two different occasions at Academy events, and we were reminiscing,” Lietch told BI. “She was like, ‘Wow, that was the best money I’ve ever spent.’ It paid back significantly for her.”
Lietch and Stahelski didn’t find out until after they finished filming that their mystery financier/savior was Longoria. “Basil took us out to dinner,” Stahelski said, “and we were laughing about all the bulls–t that happened, and he said, ‘By the way, funny story, you know who gap financed you? Eva Longoria.’ We were like, ‘What!’”