‘We've got a pretty good story': John Wick director Chad Stahelski teases Chapter 5
Chad Stahelski has a "pretty good story" for John Wick: Chapter 5.
After the titular hitman's apparent death in 2023's John Wick: Chapter 4, Lionsgate has greenlit a fifth outing for Keanu Reeves' assassin, and Stahelski, 56, has teased the script he and scribe Mike Finch wrote is coming along nicely - though will only go ahead with the movie if they "crack" the story.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter about continuing John Wick's story after his supposed end in Chapter 4, the filmmaker said: "I'm not going to lie to you, it's a bit of a conundrum. Me and Mike Finch — the writer on 4 who's also writing 5 — we've got a pretty good story that I think is cool. Once we have a 50-page book, and if we're feeling it, we'll sit with Keanu and shape this thing.
"Look, everybody seems to want it. It's a matter of whether we crack it. We're actively working on it. It's just … is it going to be satisfying?"
Stahelski added that while Lionsgate wants John Wick: Chapter 5, the sequel isn't locked in just yet.
He explained: "The studio would very much will it into existence, I'm sure, at some point. Look, they've been great and they've asked us to really try and we have a really good couple of ideas and we're going to try."
The filmmaker added that even if John Wick: Chapter 5 ultimately doesn't come to fruition, he and his creative team will likely discover plenty of other ideas that could be reworked for a spin-off in the process of developing the movie, such as the Ana de Armas-starring Ballerina.
Stahelski said: "If we go down the road of John Wick 5 and build this story and decide this isn't right, there are probably going to be 10 other things we'll discover that we'll use for other things.
"It's a great creative exercise. It's being in the room riffing with people we love. That's nothing but wins."
Ballerina - which also stars Norman Reedus, Ian McShane, Lorenza Izzo, Anjelica Huston and the late Lance Reddick - follows Eve Maccaro, a deadly assassin who seeks vengeance for her family's murder and unleashes her fury against those who wronged her.
The film is also set to include John Wick as an adversary of Macarro's, though Stahelski revealed this wasn't always in the plan, and he was initially "kind of against" bringing in Reeves' assassin.
He explained: "That wasn't in the original script. To be honest, I was kind of against it. But I do see the benefit and we wanted to help out [director Len Wiseman].
"We had just opened John Wick 4 and it was huge. He couldn't go back to the model of the first John Wick and do a little $18 million indie thing and try to build it up.
"In order to stay in the same game, you got to give him a fighting chance. And the easiest way to transfer that over — at least, from the studio point of view — was have Wick in Ballerina in a special timeline."
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