The John Wick franchise shows no signs of slowing down upcoming releases, even after the apparent death of its titular character portrayed by Keanu Reeves.
The franchise kicked off with the memorable John Wick in 2014, followed by three sequels. All four movies were directed by Chad Stahelski. A spin-off movie, Ballerina, with Ana de Armas as the lead, is set to be released next summer. It is expected to feature the return of Keanu Reeves as John Wick, and other supporting characters from the franchise.
The most recently released project set in the franchise was The Continental: From the World of John Wick, a prequel series revolving around a young Winston Scott in the 1970s. It was released in October of this year and received mixed reviews from critics and fans.
Read inside to see all the new updates on John Wick 5 and upcoming spin-offs:
Development Resumes On John Wick 5
After the SAG-AFTRA strike ended on November 9, during Lionsgate’s quarterly earnings call, Lionsgate Co-COO Joe Drake announced that work on John Wick 5 has resumed and that multiple spin-offs are currently in development.
“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.”
Joe Drake
John Wick 5 was originally planned to be shot back-to-back with John Wick 4, but the plans changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the writers’ strike.
Earlier this month, producer Basil Iwanyk spoke with Screen Rant and affirmed that John Wick 5 in the franchise will not necessarily pick off from the fourth movie.
“So I think that what I love about the end of John Wick 4 is, if this means that there’s never another John Wick movie, it’s a nice elegant way of ending it, right? If there is another John Wick movie, which I do believe there will be, we don’t know what it is yet, but I do believe. I do feel like it will be a completely other book. If these movies were four chapters, you kind of blame it on the metaphor. The next John Wick will be another book. It won’t be like six months later from John Wick 4.”
Basil Iwanyk
New Spin-Offs Confirmed
An untitled television series has also been confirmed to be in development by Chad Stahelski, who intends to direct episodes as well. While speaking with Collider, he also confirmed that it will not feature John Wick:
“I would love to do a couple of episodes of the TV show just because I think I’d have fun trying things that we didn’t get to try in the films. I mean, absolutely. There’s some great ideas. And to work with a different cast and a different story structure without John Wick, it would be a fun challenge.”
Chad Stahelski
What else? a John Wick anime series is also in the works, as stated by Stahelski in an interview with The Playlist:
“So we’re really looking forward to that; we’re really excited about it because we’re doing that and a Japanese anime because I love Japanese anime so much,” he explained. “So to create all the cool stories that anime could achieve better than we could and the TV show to expand our world, we’ll still get our fix, you know what I mean? And we’ll still have all the fun.”
Chad Stahelski
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