Keanu Reeves knows a good franchise when he sees it — which explains why he smartly declined to appear in Speed 2: Cruise Control but has signed up for second (and third and fourth) go-arounds with Bill & Ted and The Matrix movies. On March 24, Reeves will suit up, quite literally, once again as the eponymous un-retired hitman in John Wick: Part 4, a.k.a. The Longest John Wick Movie, which is getting stellar early reviews. Already, box office experts are predicting a record-breaking opening weekend for the film as far as the franchise goes — but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a fifth movie will be on the way.
While it was originally announced that the fourth and fifth films in the series would shoot back-to-back, director Chad Stahelski ultimately decided to scrap those plans. “I didn’t feel good about doing 4 and 5 collectively,” Stahelski told Total Film earlier this year, citing the 200-day production schedule that would be required as one (exhausting) argument against pursuing this option. (Reeves has already described the fourth film as the “hardest physical role” he’s ever had. In the same interview, however, the director hinted that more Wick would likely be on the way — though possibly in a few years from now.
“Keanu calls it the John Wick fever,” Stahelski explained. “You haven’t done John Wick for two years and you’re like, ‘We gotta go do something!’”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, however, the director seemed less assured that there could be a fifth film on the horizon. When Stahelski’s habit of going “back and forth on whether or not you want to do a fifth John Wick” was addressed, the director laid out his current feelings on the franchise:
“In our minds, Keanu and I are done for the moment. We’re going to give John Wick a rest. I’m sure the studio has a plan. If everyone loves it and it goes kooky, then we’ll take a quiet minute. Wicks always, for some weird reason, always get the latest release date in Japan. It’s always like, three months later. If it’s the same this time, we’ll do a Japanese tour and release the movie in September. Keanu and I will take the long trip to Tokyo, we’ll sit in the Imperial Hotel Scotch Bar and go, ‘What do you think?’ We’ll have a couple 20-year-old whiskies and write some ideas on napkins. If those ideas stick, maybe we’ll make a movie.”
As for Wick himself? Reeves told Total Film that whether a fifth film happens really comes down to the audience. “You have to see how the audience responds to what we did,” Reeves noted. “The only reason we’ve had a chance to make these movies is that people have liked what we have done. So I think we have to wait and see how the audience responds to it. Hopefully, they’ll like it.”
Given that each film in the series (so far) has doubled the box office take of the entry that preceded it, one has to imagine that the official announcement of a John Wick 5 can’t be too far off.
In the meantime, however, Reeves has teased a possible appearance in Ballerina, the John Wick spinoff starring Ana de Armas.