John Wick: Chapter 4 recently dominated the box office, with Keanu Reeves delivering hours of action. And we loved it here at Nerdist. The fourth installment in the successful John Wick franchise was meant to be the end of Baba Yaga’s tale. And honestly, he deserves some rest, considering how quickly all of this mess went down for him. That’s a lot of pain and killing in a span of only a few months. But the smell of success is an intoxicating scent that lures executives in for more. So, it looks more and more likely that John Wick 5 could happen in the future, which is interesting considering how the fourth film neatly wraps up Wick’s story.
But don’t expect a John Wick 5 movie to hit your screens any time soon. Director Chad Stahelski spoke with Business Insider recently and reiterated that both he and Keanu Reeves were open to return but that story hasn’t materialized yet. “If we felt we weren’t ripping the fans off and had more to give, I’d do it tomorrow,” he said. “I just don’t have that right now. The other stuff I’m working on are great properties, and I’m excited, but nothing is going to beat this.”
We will have to wait and see what happens.
Will There Be a John Wick 5?
Will there be a John Wick 5? It looks like John Wick 5 is at least in early development at Lionsgate. At a recent Lionsgate’s earnings call discussing Q4 of 2023, Motion Picture Group chairman Joe Drake addressed the John Wick franchise (via Comicbook.com). Not only did he confirm there were video games and TV series spinoffs in the works for John Wick, but he noted that John Wick 5 was actually in development. Well, we aren’t surprised. Here is his full quote:
We’re now moving across that franchise, not just in the AAA video game space, but looking at what the regular cadence of spin-offs, television really growing that universe so that there is a steady cadence of a franchise that there’s clear appetite by the audience. What is official is that, as you know, Ballerina is the first spinoff that comes out next year. We’re in development on three others, including John Wick 5 and including television series. The Continental will be airing soon. And so, we’re building out the world and when that five movie comes, will be organic — will be organically grown out of how we’re starting to tell those stories. But you can rely on a regular cadence of John Wick.
Drake recently spoke about John Wick 5 again during another earnings call (Also according to Comicbook.com) and noted the movie was currently being written. He said:
On the Wick side we got multiple spin-offs and Wick Five… We started to work on (it) right when the writer’s strike started and we’ve gotten back to work as soon as it ended.
Whether John Wick 5 Happens Is Up to Reeves and Stahelski
Additionally, John Wick producer Basil Iwanyk shared with Deadline that the most important factor for a potential John Wick 5 was whether or not Keanu Reeves and Chad Stahelski felt compelled to make another movie.
Iwanyk offered:
Once they get through their hangovers, if Keanu and Chad have figured out something cool, if they’ve an organic way back in that doesn’t feel like bullshit, then there will be a John Wick 5. That trip to Japan, it’s like waiting for a boat to emerge out of the smoke, but that’s the impetus. These movies are really hard for Keanu and Chad, and everybody. By the time each one is over, most involved have said, never again, this is too hard and we’re not getting any younger. Then time goes by, you see it embraced by fans, and after working together every year for 11 years, it’s become a family and in some demented way, and we miss each other. But I totally defer to Chad and Keanu to figure out what and if that story is.
He also added, speaking to IGN, “John Wick 4 was embraced enough by the critics and the audience that it’s kind of an organic and natural next step to do John Wick 5. I think that there’s no question that it’s in development, but right now the story isn’t there yet. And until the story is there, it isn’t… It’s real on something we’re trying to figure out. But we haven’t settled on what that movie looks like or feels like.” Hopefully, that’s where Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves come in.
Stahelski Weighs in on Another John Wick Movie
For his part, Stahelski recently revealed, “I don’t have a take right now. But I could wake up tomorrow and have a cool idea that I’d pitch to Keanu, or he would pitch to me, and it might hit that chord of, ‘Oh my God, we got to do this right now.’”
He also noted to the Happy Sad Confused podcast, “Keanu, if you ask him right now, ‘Would you do John Wick 5?’ He’d be, ‘Fuck yeah!’ But then he’d look and go, ‘Well, what is it? I have no fucking idea.’ And believe me, it’s not like, ‘We’re going to figure it out today’… We have a lot of set pieces, we have a lot of ideas, we have a lot of things that we didn’t go or didn’t do before. I have no doubt that we’d come up with a lot of great pieces. It just — what’s the main threat? We’re about myths. It’s like a fable. What’s the message in the fable? What’s the moral of the story?'” Ultimately he concludes, “I don’t think there’s any reason to bring John Wick back without a real reason.”
Fingers crossed there will be answers to some of those questions if the time is right for John Wick 5.
John Wick 5 Not Yet a Sure Thing
None of this, of course, is a confirmation that a John Wick 5 movie will definitely happen. Maybe Keanu Reeves will decide that he’s tired of shooting people and running in dress shoes when he meets with Stahelski. Early development doesn’t mean a definite yes, either. Either way, this isn’t the end of the universe. There’s already a secret Wick movie in the works, and we have the Ballerina flick coming later this year. But we wouldn’t mind seeing more John Wick at all, just as long as John Wick 5 tells the right story.
Originally published on March 27, 2023.
