Lionsgate Confirms ‘John Wick 5’ in Early Production
Lionsgate has given John Wick 5 the green light – but what does that mean for the franchise and the character?
In a recent financial call, Lionsgate’s motion picture group chair dropped the idea that they’re using the spin-offs to build up to a fifth John Wick movie.
“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 five and including the television series, The Continental, which will be airing soon. We’re building out the world and when that 5 movie comes, it 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.”
– Joe Drake
There’s a lot of room for speculation here, but it sure sounds like they want another Keanu Reeves-led John Wick movie. If he were just talking movies in the franchise, the fifth would be Ballerina, not some mystery future film.
Fans have known that an expanded universe is in the works, so the comment that more projects are coming isn’t a surprise. And the grand plan after Parabellum came out was to make five movies. But the pandemic slowed production down by several years and we got what we got.
The two people that count – Reeves and director Chad Stahelski – haven’t said no (not directly, at least) to another movie.
“It’s very flattering for them to come back and, you know, say ‘We want more’ and it’s not just a cash grab. It’s legitimately the audience wants more. I think we all need that little bit of time to go, ‘Whew. Let’s see what’s next.’ … If Keanu and I, a few months from now, sit down at a whiskey bar in Japan again and go, ‘Yep, we’ll never do another one of those,’ and then all of a sudden go, ‘Yeah, but I got an idea,’ we’re open to it.”
– Chad Stahelski
Do We Really Need John Wick 5?
Spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4 Below
I love these movies. I saw Chapter 4 in theaters five times. It’s because of that love that I hope that the storyline actually ends where it did. There is such a thing as overdoing it. The story got a solid ending, we don’t need some weird resurrection of the character or a bunch of de-aged prequels.
Please, just let John be dead or hiding in some remote cabin with a dog in retirement. Forever. Do spin-offs that introduce new characters, and new time periods. All the spin-offs ever. But John is dead, his vengeance and grief are done. Let the man rest… and play at music festivals with his band.
Fans have watched as their favorite series have grown into massive franchises that don’t know when to stop. Characters become parodies of themselves, plots exist only to one-up, tech makes things extra weird in a bad way. Can we not do that here?
