JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 5 and Multiple Spinoffs Now in Development at Lionsgate
Lionsgate has big plans for the John Wick franchise, and it’s been confirmed that John Wick: Chapter 5 is currently being written and there are also multiple spinoffs in the works. This update was dropped by Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Chair Joe Drake during Lionsgate's quarterly earnings call. 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."
This really isn’t surprising as franchise director Chad Stahelski recently teased some of the spinoffs that he’d like to see get made like projects that explore Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King and Halle Berry’s Sofia Al-Azwar We just don’t know if any of those are the spinoffs in development. He also recently revealed an anime series that’s in development.
As far as the John Wick sequels go, of course, there was always going to be another film! I’m pretty confident that we’ll also see Keanu Reeves back in the role and kicking ass.
The director previously said that he and Reeves had John Wick movie ideas for days and that he could make these films for the rest of his career:
“I enjoy making these movies because there’s no limit. We create our own mythology, and we have a studio that both stays out of our way and supports us on the wacky decisions. If people go see the movie, and it makes money, and they came back to us, Keanu and I have ideas for days. I could live here for the rest of my career.”
He later shared that he has ideas already written down for the future of the franchise. He specifically mentioned that he’s got ideas for, at least, the next five films:
“I have notebooks and notebooks of shit behind me, John Wicks 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. We have ideas for days. We just don’t have the story locked. I have no interest in doing the cash grab of bringing John Wick back for something. Is he a character I like? Of course. And if I did a couple of John Wick movies, great. Keanu would do one again in a second if we had a good story. We leave that open-ended. I know that the studio would love us to say we have another one.”
Stahelski went on to say:
“Keanu and I are always interested in that, but we leave it hanging out there a little bit to figure out if we have something that we’d want to watch. Second, we have a studio that’s very enthusiastic and not just financially motivated, but they’re just interested in seeing what we could do with it. So, they’ve been super cool of us this year about branching off. I know the term is ‘spin-offs’ or ‘ancillaries’ or whatever you want to call it. Keanu and I both went back, and we all said, ‘Look, we have ideas for the John Wick world, other characters that aren’t John Wick-centric. Would you guys be interested in exploring that?’ And they were super cool, and they said, ‘Yes, we’d be very interested in that.’ Characters that weren’t in any of the movies that had fallen to the sidelines because they just didn’t fit in our storylines, and some existing characters that we’d like to see other things.”
John Wick producer Basil Iwanyk previously talked about the franchise and how Reeves really did want his character to die at the end of John Wick: Chapter 4. He explains that Reeves was just physically and emotionally exhausted from making these movies:
"After the second, third, and fourth movie, making these films is so exhausting and it destroys Keanu, physically and emotionally. By the end, he’s always like, 'I can’t do this again,' and we agree with him. The guy is just a shell of himself because he just goes off and goes for it. He was like, 'I wanna be definitively killed at the end of this movie.'"
When Reeves talked about coming back for another film, he said: “I guess I'm going to have to lean on never say never [...] For me, it feels really right that John Wick finds peace."
Regardless, the studio is obviously not done with John Wick. Drake previously explained: "We're not ready to say goodbye to Keanu with this franchise. It's what alternative there will be." He went on to add there are “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.”
They are now deep in expanding the world of John Wick with all of these new projects. It’ll be interesting to see what these other spinoffs will be. But The Continental has already been released on Peacock and the film Ballerina is also coming. Other than that, I’m excited to see how the John Wick story continues in Chapter 5!