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I really have to wonder how much they're paying for more and more hitmen to crawl out of the woodwork, after John has already racked up triple digit kill counts over the last movie. All the monetary rates I can remember being quoted seemed grossly inadequate, I'd rather go work at a fast-food chain for minimum wage if the risk premium is that poor.
(I grant that the franchise runs on ROC. But there's only so much I can suspend my disbelief before it breaks my neck with it)
Far be it from me to criticize the economics of an action film, but yeah, there genuinely CANNOT be enough contract killings needed in this world to justify the number of assassins that populate New York.
I can imagine that intergang warfare flares up from time to time which requires hiring on more talent, but if most of them have enough downtime to just hang out in the city, and need money badly enough to go after the most feared killer alive, there must not be much else going on between gang wars.
And it would nice to portray an assassin who sees the contract to take out John, looks at the monetary amount, shakes his head, and goes back to his crosswords b/c screw that.
My headcanon is that "The Table" gets involved in international politics by taking contracts from nation-states to kill elites/politicians/businessmen in other countries and this is where most of the money in the assassin economy comes from, and the main reason they maintain such strict procedures and rules, so that various governments 'trust' them to keep things orderly and in exchange, tolerate their existence rather than declare war on them.
There's literally nothing shown in the movies to corroborate this, of course.
I expect John Wick, Chapter 5: Head Cannon to come out. Featuring Keanu Reeves, and a .22lr pistol strapped to his skull. That's about the only uncharted territory left.
Might I make a suggestion:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iGpZ9xaQLYQ?si=SHm5raEAkD18v4fD
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