AI turns Danny Trejo into John Wick and we’re both terrified and amazed

In yet another moment destined for Black Mirror, artificial intelligence has created a series of images morphing the faces of Danny Trejo and John Wick. Shared by Trejo’s official Twitter page, the three images pull John Wick from various scenes throughout his namesake action franchise, and while all the markers of the assassin are there — from his signature suit to his trademark glower — there’s something a little different about this iteration of Wick.

The AI rendering features Trejo’s enviable moustache, and was humorously named in the accompanying caption as ‘Juan Wick’. “They just messed with the wrong Mexican,” Trejo wrote. Fans appear to be on board with the crossover, with one user suggesting that “Some version of this needs to be made” with a cameo appearance by Keanu Reeves. “Please tell me this is an actual thing,” one fan wrote, while another declared they “would like to see this movie.”

While his credits don’t yet include any of the John Wick films, Trejo has a long and storied career within the action genre, having led the Machete franchise and elsewhere starring in Heat, From Dusk Till Dawn and Spy Kids, among others. Trejo and Reeves have worked together before, having both voiced characters in the 2020 SpongeBob film adaptation, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run. 

According to Fortress of Solitude, the images were created using AI tool Midjourney, and have been circulating for some time prior to Trejo’s ‘Juan Wick’ pitch on Twitter. It’s not the only new iteration of John Wick to emerge from some editing handiwork, following the release of a fan-made John Wick: Chapter 4 trailer starring fellow action actor Steven Seagal. Elsewhere, the blockbuster franchise has been reimagined as an AI-generated Pixar film. 

Again, in 2021, Trejo was the subject of yet another AI brainchild, this time becoming Wonder Woman in a deepfake video uploaded to YouTube. With artificial intelligence increasingly getting its foothold in the entertainment industry, the future seems uncertain. But when hilarious edits like Juan Wick emerge, we can’t help but enjoy the ride.