Lionsgate isn’t “ready to say goodbye” Keanu Reeves and John Wick

John Wick: Chapter 4 opened in theaters this past Friday, taking in more money on its opening weekend than any film in the franchise so far. This surely means that we’ll be getting more John Wick movies in the future, yes?

Well, yes and no. There are already spinoffs on the way: Ana de Armas will star in an upcoming spinoff movie called Ballerina, while a TV show about the assassin hotel in New York where much of the first three films take place is in on its way to Peacock: Continental.

But as for John Wick: Chapter 5, that’s complicated because…well, read below if you don’t mind major SPOILERS.

Lionsgate plans to expand the John Wick franchise

After a long battle — basically four films running — John Wick finally gets peace at the end of Chapter 4, which is to say he dies. So that’s it? No more Keanu Reeves as John Wick?

Speaking to Deadline, Lionsgate executive Joe Drake isn’t so sure. “We’re not ready to say goodbye to Keanu with this franchise.”

"There’s a lot of different things that we can do. I’ve seen this movie five times in the last week. I can see the way that the audience moves him."

There are indeed a lot of options. We could always get movies about earlier points in John Wick’s career; after all, he was already a famous assassin by the time of the first film. Or John Wick: Chapter 5 could just straight-up reveal that he didn’t really die. We didn’t actually see him expire onscreen; it wouldn’t be that hard to write around.

John Wick will appear in Ballerina, which will feel “different”

Actually, Lionsgate has already found a way to bring back Reeves as John Wick: he’ll appear in Ballerina, which is set between Chapters 3 and 4.

“Obviously, there’s crossover with some of the characters, but we spent a lot of time on the timeline and making Ballerina different,” producer Erica Lee told SyFy Wire. “Ana’s character is a ballerina and went to the Ruska Roma school that Anjelica Huston’s character teaches at and that’s kind of her way into The Continental world and The High Table and the assassin land.”

"Ballerina is super cool. We’re in post on it now. It’s been fun to come at it from a different POV, a female POV. John Wick is always trying to get out and I think the MO of Ana’s character is slightly different. I think she’s trying to get in. It’s been fun to kind of take what we love from the John Wick world… and give it kind of a little bit of a different feel. It’s shot in a different location, it’s snowy. It’s different but equally cool."

Ballerina is due out in 2024.

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