Early in the history of the online shooter Fortnite there was a skin that reminded many of Keanu Reeves as John Wick. That’s why kids approached the actor and called him “Fortnite Guy,” says Donald Mustard, the Creative Director at Epic.
Why was Keanu Reeves called the “Fortnite Guy?” Although Fortnite Battle Royale was released in September 2017, the game only became really popular in spring 2018.
On February 22, Season 3 started with a Battle Pass. The highest reward there, which players had to grind for, was the “Reaper” skin at level 100.
For many, he looked like “John Wick,” the action role played by Keanu Reeves that revitalized his somewhat stagnant career in 2014.
This is what was happening to Keanu Reeves at the time: The Creative Director of Fortnite, Donald Mustard, recounts on the sidelines of E3 2019, how Keanu Reeves was faring at that time.
Because suddenly kids approached him. Where they used to shout “Hey, you are Neo” or “Hey, you are Wick!”, they now shouted: “Fortnite Guy! Fortnite Guy!”
Reeves was puzzled: “What is this Fortnite thing?”
Then he researched and said, “Hey, he doesn’t even look like me. We need to get this right.”
Ultimately, that’s how the “real” John Wick skin for Fortnite was created, which came to Fortnite during an event in May 2019 with the release of “John Wick 3”. Reeves and Mustard met, exchanged ideas, and then decided to create this “John Wick” skin, Mustard recounts.
Was the “Reaper Skin” a copy? Mustard says it was not actually planned for the Reaper skin to look like John Wick. They wanted to create a “Man in Black” who is “super awesome” and ended up with that.
What is the story behind this? This is an anecdote that Mustard shares here. It shows how popular Fortnite is in pop culture and provides a nice context for how the “John Wick” event came to be.
Fortnite is so popular that even a superstar like Keanu Reeves cannot escape the phenomenon and suddenly transitions from Neo and John Wick to a “Fortnite skin”.
It also casts Fortnite in a positive light. It is already known, and surely no coincidence, that many popular skins designed by Epic have clear pop culture references.
But as long as Keanu Reeves does not refute the story, it stands as is.
