The Bowery King once said, “The man. The myth. The legend. John Wick. You’re not very good at retiring.” It’s official: Baba Yaga is officially coming back for a fifth installment.
Fans of the John Wick franchise (and of Keanu Reeves, tbh) will be happy to hear that a fifth movie has just been confirmed by movie studio Lionsgate. From the murder of his dog to owing a debt to an Italian mobster and having a $14 million bounty put on his head, it is only fitting that the fourth and fifth installments of his misadventures arise during a worldwide pandemic.
John Feltheimer, the Lionsgate CEO, said during an earnings call, “We’re also busy preparing scripts for the next two installments of our John Wick action franchise, with John Wick 4 slated to hit theatres Memorial Day weekend 2022. We hope to shoot both John Wick 4 & 5 back to back when Keanu becomes available early next year.” As John would say, “You wanted me back… I’m back!”
The reason Keanu Reeves is only available early next year is that he was in the midst of shooting The Matrix 4 (actually, filming was only four weeks in). Obviously, the production schedules and filming for this fourth film were interrupted by the coronavirus and the release date has been pushed back. Fans must now dreadfully wait until April 1, 2022, for the release of the film but hey, everything’s got a price, right?
Chad Stahelski, the director, in an interview with Collider stated, “Between how much we want to expand the John Wick – let’s just call it a ‘franchise’, I guess – and the pandemic, I couldn’t tell you a release date for the next one. I mean, Matrix was only four weeks in when this all happened. So, Keanu’s gotta go finish his commitment up on The Matrix, which is a big deal and which I think will probably take him until the end of the year. Then we have to go into our prep mode and the we’ll start. So release dates, I’m sure with every production from Dave [Leitch’s] stuff to our stuff, who knows right now.”
It’s going to be a while until Keanu Reeves graces us with his presence as Baba Yaga/The Boogeyman in the newest John Wick film. To be fair, he was filming one major movie franchise while awaiting to film another major franchise, I guess you can say… Keanu is a man of focus, commitment, sheer fucking will. If you’re a franchise fanatic, then the trailer for the 8th Saw movie is definitely what you need to see.
