Keanu Reeves starring John Wick franchise has given fans nearly a decade of rejoicing. However, it turns out that it wasn’t supposed to be this long. According to Chad Stahelski, they originally planned for it to be a trilogy, with the franchise tying up with John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.
The reason they kept it was because the third movie didn’t really feel like a true end. As a result, they made a fourth movie which was released earlier this year.
Interestingly, it was supposed to be the last time Keanu Reeves brings John Wick to the screens with a story centered around him, until it recently got revived for a fifth sequel.
Keanu Reeves wanted to end John Wick with Chapter 4
In a review interview with Screen Rant, Chad Stahelski, the movies’ director revealed that the original plan was for them to send John Wick off with the Halle Berry starrer third sequel. However, neither he nor Reeves felt satisfied with the movie ending like that. As a result, they started hatching a new plan to give the beloved character a proper end. He noted,
“We started thinking about, ‘There’s only one way; we go back and do a fourth one.’ Because in film history lucky enough to get three good ones, you get four is almost unheard of no one’s ever really done it.”
As a result, they started looking for ideas to continue on to a fourth movie. According to Stahelski, both Keanu Reeves and he agreed that they had to kind of redeem John Wick. For example, make him connect with his friends better, backstories, and even significant places in significant cities to truly make an experience out of it.
However, even when they sort of had it together, it still didn’t feel right to them. That is until they had one of their friends come and take a look at it in order to improve it in some way. Stahelski noted that their epiphany came during a Christmas holiday, saying,
“It wasn’t until really about Christmas of that year where we took a break. We brought in a friend to help take one more pass at it, and it kind of clicked. It made me sad at the end, and we could hear the music and knew what we were gonna do, and that’s when it kind of made sense. All this was our plan, but nothing really felt right ’til you read it, and you could see it. Me and Keanu both looked up and smiled. You could feel yourself getting choked up. We’re like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna send this guy. And that’s when it needs.'”
Thankfully for both Keanu Reeves and Chad Stahelski, the idea worked out wonderfully, and John Wick: Chapter 4 added around $400 million into the franchise, taking it straight past the $1 billion mark.
Keanu Reeves to return with John Wick 5
Interestingly, although Keanu Reeves maintained that this was possibly the last time he would play the titular assassin, at least for a little while, and was confirmed by Stahelski, things changed.
A few days ago, the director announced that there is already a John Wick 5 in the early development stages. Not only that but apparently there are 5 different projects based on the John Wick universe that are currently being developed.
Two of those happen to be the Ana De Armas starring Ballerina releasing next year, and the TV series The Continental, releasing later this year. As a result, fans of Keanu Reeves and the franchise are way over the moon celebrating the continuation of the franchise in some way or the other.
Also Read: John Wick Universe Continues to Expand with Huge AAA Video Game Confirmed to be in Development
Ballerina releases on June 7th, 2024.
Source: Screen Rant
