The John Wick universe is on pause, but series director Chad Stahelski believes there is every chance Keanu Reeves could return as the assassin in future films since the stuntman-turned-director revealed he had “notebooks and notebooks” of ideas for future John Wick sequels.
“I have notebooks and notebooks of shit behind me, John Wicks 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,” Stahelski told Inverse. “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 added.
With The Continental TV series airing on Peacock and the Ana De Armas-led spin-off Ballerina in active development, the John Wick universe will branch out further with plans for a fifth film already underway. Paired with an “enthusiastic” studio, Stahelski and Reeves have the creative freedom to pitch concepts to producers.
“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,” Stahelski shared.
“I know the term is “spin-offs” or “ancillaries” or whatever you want to call it,” the director explained. “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.”
