Latest news with #Stahelski
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Director of John Wick Is Still Trying to Work Out How to Make Keanu Reeves in John Wick 5 Make Sense Given the Ending of 4
John Wick 5 is official and Keanu Reeves has signed on to 'give John's story the proper next step.' We know that much. But, how can that be, given the ending of John Wick 4? It turns out that's something of a head-scratcher even for director Chad Stahelski. Warning! Spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4 follow. John Wick appears to die at the end of John Wick: Chapter 4 after, once again, defeating the bad guys. We even get to see John Wick's gravestone, with Winston (Ian McShane) and the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) saying their farewells. But, crucially, we only see John Wick collapse from his injuries and appear to die. So, how can Reeves continue as Wick? The Hollywood Reporter asked Stahelski if he'd managed to work that out yet in a recent interview. Here's the exchange: THR: You've said that John Wick 5 won't renege on the ending of 4, that John Wick will still have died. Has that evolved? The last time we spoke last year, you were trying to crack it. Chad Stahelski: 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's comments make it sound like he's still trying to work out exactly what John Wick 5 is, which in turn suggests it's a fair way from production. In fact, Stahelski's comments make it sound like John Wick 5 might not even happen, if he and his team fail to 'crack it.'Stahelski continued: '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.' So, it's not certain John Wick 5 will happen? Stahelski again: '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.' John Wick 5 is (probably) happening, then, but we don't know what it is yet. What we know it isn't is a prequel, as Stahelski ruled that out: 'Keanu and I are not interested in going backwards.' It's worth remembering that while Keanu Reeves appears ageless, he is in fact 60-years-old, and there will come a point when he is unable to play Wick in the same way he has before. So perhaps he'll play Wick in a different way. In March, Stahelski told Empire: 'The saga of John Wick was pretty wrapped up. So the only way to do a 5 is to have a new story that involves John Wick. It's not a continuation with the High Table. John dealt with his grief. It will be really different, and everybody [will] see the trailer and go, 'Holy fuck... I gotta see that.'' It's a busy time for the billion dollar John Wick franchise. In addition to the four mainline films, the John Wick Universe, as it's called, includes two spinoff films (the just-released Ballerina and a spinoff directed by and starring Donnie Yen reprising his Caine character, set to start production this summer). In addition, Lionsgate Television produced The Continental: From the World of John Wick for Peacock and Amazon Prime, and Lionsgate confirmed it's developing the TV series John Wick: Under the High Table, which Stahelski and Keanu Reeves are executive producing. There's an animated prequel film that will tell the story of John Wick's 'Impossible Task,' too. Outside TV and films, Lionsgate recently opened an immersive John Wick experience in Las Vegas and has a John Wick AAA video game in the works. Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ or confidentially at wyp100@
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
New ‘John Wick 5' Update Reveals Keanu Reeves Isn't Onboard With a Prequel
While the ending of John Wick 4 left the obvious impression that we had seen the last of Keanu Reeves in his popular role, fans were given a Christmas present in early April. At CinemaCon 2025 in Las Vegas, Adam Fogelson, the chair of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, revealed that Reeves and director Chad Stahelski were working on John Wick 5. The news came a bit out of left field, but the initial belief was that it'd happen after spinoffs such as the recently released Ballerina and upcoming film Caine. Regardless, given how John Wick 4 ended, it was bound to be a tall task for Stahelski and Reeves to finalize a game plan quickly. That's proven to be the case, and since the announcement, the comments from Stahelski about the fifth movie in the series have been candid, but they have also led to some concern for fans. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, a question was posed to Stahelski, citing the director's plan not to renege on the ending of the fourth film, meaning John Wick will still be dead, and whether it's "evolved." Stahelski first discussed the writing, but mentioned that "it's a matter of whether we crack [the story]." "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," Stahelski said. "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?"Along with a mildly worrisome comment about "cracking" the story, the director also tossed out the hypothetical that they "go down the road of John Wick 5" but "decide this isn't right." "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," he said. "It's a great creative exercise. It's being in the room riffing with people we love. That's nothing but wins." The general approach leaves the feeling that there's plenty of uncertainty around John Wick 5, at least from Stahelski and possibly Reeves. He ultimately told The Hollywood Reporter that "the studio would very much will [the movie] into existence" at some point, and that "we're going to try" while citing that they do have a couple of really good ideas already. So by this point, fans are likely thinking about what you may consider the obvious route for the fifth installment of the John Wick series—a prequel. To the credit of THR, the question about a possible prequel was posed to Stahelski, but was promptly turned back. Stahelski revealed that Reeves isn't interested in a John Wick prequel, and that he's in the same boat. "Keanu and I are not interested in going backwards," Stahelski said of a possible John Wick prequel. With Reeves and Stahelski both out on the idea of a prequel, and the latter planning to stick with the storyline that leaves John Wick dead, the director needs to formulate a highly unique approach for a fifth film. It's easy to understand why Stahelski is approaching John Wick 5 in the fashion he is. Fortunately, it doesn't appear there's a reason to sound the alarm at this point, but we also shouldn't expect significant news about the fifth movie anytime in the immediate 'John Wick 5' Update Reveals Keanu Reeves Isn't Onboard With a Prequel first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 11, 2025
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘John Wick' Boss Chad Stahelski Gets Candid About Franchise: 'My Process Is F***ed'
John Wick creator Chad Stahelski is attempting one of the trickiest pivots in Hollywood: Turn a series of hit movies with a dead hero into a broader franchise. His four John Wick films starring Keanu Reeves as a stoic ronin gunslinger have been a rousing success for studio Lionsgate. But his last effort, 2023's John Wick: Chapter 4, killed off its world-weary protagonist in a finale that felt perfectly fitting. After the film grossed nearly half a billion dollars, Lionsgate and Stahelski suddenly had a high-class problem: John Wick the franchise clearly has a lot more life left in it, while the John Wick character was seemingly six feet under. What to do? Lionsgate attempted (without Stahelski and Reeves) a Peacock spinoff TV limited series titled The Continental, which fell flat (Stahelski has thoughts about this). This week sees the release of the franchise's first spinoff movie, Ballerina, which stars Ana de Armas as an assassin in the world of John Wick (Reeves shows up briefly). There is also a recently released documentary going behind the scenes of making the films (Wick is Pain), a forthcoming John Wick prequel anime movie, a spinoff in the works starring Donnie Yen's fan-favorite blind assassin Caine and — possibly, perhaps certainly? — a John Wick: Chapter 5 (Stahelski has thoughts about all of this, as well). More from The Hollywood Reporter Jason Constantine, Lionsgate Co-President, Dies at 55 'From the World of John Wick: Ballerina' Review: Ana de Armas Slays in a Hard-Charging Spinoff That Makes for a Mindless Summer Treat Keanu Reeves Applauds Ana de Armas' "Joy for the Action" as She Joins 'John Wick' Universe A former stuntman, Stahelski rose through the ranks as a second unit director on action films (such as Captain America: Civil War) before he and then-partner David Leitch were given a shot at helming 2014's John Wick, which showcased their mesmerizing style of kinetic 'gun fu' action. Below, as part of The Hollywood Reporter's Titan interview series, Stahelski talks about all things Wick — and being a lone warrior fighting an endless line of studio suits. Last year, Lionsgate announced that you now have 'franchise oversight' over the world of John Wick. How much power does that actually entail? I don't know the answer. I promise you, James, I am pushing to find out. We seem to be doing something right, yet with every [movie], there is a bit of an argument. Now, I get it. Studios have to deal with a varying degree of talent and vision and some people fall short of doing what they say. Sometimes [studios are] told, 'You don't understand my vision' and it's a cop out for 'I have no idea what my vision is.' If I said to you, for John Wick 3: 'I'm not going to do anything that's worked before, I'm going to have a bunch of dogs that bite crotches, and I'm going to kill 186 people.' Are you going to give me $100 million for that? Well, I'd say you have to work on that pitch. But if I give you the script, believe me, it reads worse than that pitch sounds. But in my head it makes sense. It used to come down to me being a big enough asshole but, sometimes, the asshole route doesn't work. So now I'm a lot more patient. I go: 'Listen, this idea could go south, it's super weird, just give me two weeks with my stunt team and then watch a video.' Later they're like, 'Oh, that looks cool.' Then everybody takes credit for everything. But nobody thinks half our ideas are going to work. Leitch says in the documentary — a bit critically — that you 'get a lot of juice by blowing things up and putting them back together again.' Do you think that's still true? It's 100 percent true. My process is fucked. It's so not linear. I still get told how to write scripts. 'You can't do it that way.' Says who? The guys who suck? I had an argument today with somebody saying 'That's not how you put a set-piece together.' Who is telling you this? Everyone who has done it a certain way for 20 years. Because blowing it up and ripping it apart fucks with people's heads. I'm not trying to be an anarchist with logistics. But this is why there are fucking tropes. So many movies look the same because their process is the same. You have to ask 'Why?' 'Because they do X,Y, X.' Well, then fuck X, Y, Z. And we have done that in every department for five films now. It does frustrate people. The saga crossed the $1 billion mark after the release of . What does that milestone mean to you? We tried to be an audience member and not chase the dollar. Keanu and I did it a love letter to '70s action film and wuxia [Chinese martial arts] and Chambara [Japanese sword fighting] There are a lot of fans who like kung fu movies, Samurai films, Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone. John Wick is a culmination of that. And because we've done okay financially with each one, it allowed us to increase the budget and keep doing more of the same — hopefully, in a better way, while expanding the mythology. Watching the documentary, I marveled at the studio notes on the first movie: They didn't want you to kill the dog or for Wick to execute the villain played by Alfie Allen, and they wanted the bad guys to have poisoned Wick's wife instead of her dying of natural causes. I always wonder when I hear stories like this: After the movie is a hit, does anybody say, 'We were wrong about literally all those things'? That happened once. On John Wick 2, there was disagreement with someone very high up in the studio over John Wick doing euthanasia-assist to a character called Gianna (Claudia Gerini). It was, 'Oh my God, we can't have John Wick just kill her!' We're not killing her. She had already slit her wrists and John Wick offers a way out that's more honorable. They wanted two versions. We came out of the test screening and the audience was way more on board with what's in the final film. The executive didn't miss a beat, they just went, 'You were right, I was wrong.' To their credit. It was pretty cool. But no one gets this: Even if you do a bake-off with two versions in test screenings, you would need the same audience to watch both versions to compare them, because audiences are different. But that never happens. I think you can learn a lot from test screenings, but I don't think you can make choices based on them without showing the audience everything. You weren't really involved with TV series. Were there any creative lessons to be learned from that in terms of how to expand this universe? Keanu and I were — I wouldn't say sidelined, but our opinion was heard and not really noted. [The studio] tried to convince me they knew what they were doing. A group of individuals thought they had the magic sauce. But if you take out Basil Iwanyk's producing intuitiveness, if you take out Keanu's way of delivering quirky dialogue and if you take out all the visuals I have in my head from Wong Kar-wai, anime, Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci or Andrei Tarkovsky … then it's not the same thing. They thought this was as easy as using anamorphic lenses, do a kooky hotel, put in weird dialogue, and insert crime drama. If you saw our process, you'd be like, 'You're telling me this billion dollar franchise does it this way?' I'm scouting my next film in London and we saw a cool location yesterday which totally changed the second act. We rewrote the whole thing. I find great cast members and rewrite their parts constantly. That's what makes [the movies] so good and organic — we're constantly upgrading. But the studio likes to know what they're getting for their buck and want to lock a script for budget reasons. While we're saying, 'Just write the check, we'll see you at the finish line.' You had the premiere of (which just gave ) Tuesday night. How did that go? It seemed to go pretty good. English audiences don't laugh much. Everybody seemed to really enjoy it … We were very fortunate to find Ana de Armas and the enthusiasm and punch she has. There's got to be a love if you're coming into our franchise. Sometimes I'll call the agencies and ask, 'Who loves John Wick?' Norman Reedus bumped into Keanu one day and said, 'Hey man, I love the Wicks' [and was cast in Ballerina]. Every cast member we've got has been a fan of the previous films. They come to work and it's a different vibe because they understand the world. Do you ever lay awake at night and worry that the world of only works with John Wick? Because that's a scary question, right? Keanu and I actually just talked about this. Look, it's always tricky. I think the world can be supported as long as you don't go crazy and carpet bomb. What we're doing now are stories we really want to tell that feel organic. You've seen Alice in Wonderland. Now what about the Rabbit? What about the Cheshire Cat? Also, sometimes in your own franchise, you get so far up your own ass with the mythology that by the 10th movie you don't know what's going on. I don't ever want to get that way with Wick. I want each one to be able to stand alone. Was Keanu always supposed to appear in ? 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. Does he appear in ? The Donny Yen spinoff doesn't have the John Wick character. It's got Donny Yen and it's an ode to kung fu movies. If John Wick 1 was about Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, this is about Chow Yun-fat, John Woo and Wong Kar-wai. So I think that one is a little easier to get it across to audiences because it's in a sub-genre of what we love. The documentary shows the incredible amount of training Keanu undertakes, and his punishment seems to ramp up higher for each movie. He's now 60. If you do another with him, there has to be a limit to how hard you can push this guy, right? Because at a certain point, things break. What do you do if you're a world-class sprinter in your twenties and you don't run so fast at 30? You start doing marathons — because marathon runners hit their prime in their mid-to-late thirties. You got to deal with the turns. For the first John Wick, Keanu had a really bad knee injury and he couldn't punch and kick. So we came up with the Jiujitsu and gun-fu. We're not going to lower the bar. We're just going to move the bar to something we haven't done before. You've said that won't renege on the ending of , that John Wick will still have died. Has that evolved? The last time we spoke last year, you were trying to crack it. 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? Is a prequel possible? Because the anime movie is a prequel, I assume this wouldn't be. Keanu and I are not interested in going backwards. With the anime, you don't have to de-age, you don't have explain weird stuff, you don't have to add a backstory. You accept anime in its own language without explanations. Anime just goes pop. I know you've heard this before. But ended so well that there is a certain amount of … like there's this feeling that nothing popular is allowed to end anymore. I'm with you, man. Keanu and I have discussed this many times and feel the same way. We finished 3 and thought that was going to be the last one. Look, we never expected to end John Wick. I just hate cheesy endings. I hate happy endings. Over a long enough timeline, everything's a fucking tragedy. If you kill 86 people, you don't get away. So when we got to 4, we wanted to have something that had a lot of fate and consequence. The ending was going to be a cliffhanger. Then we were sitting in Japan [during the filming of 4] going, 'We didn't stick the landing.' [Our original ending] kind of sucked. 'Fuck, we got to finish this, right?' So I was really happy with the way 4 ended. It was Keanu and I saying, 'Thank you, it's been awesome, but it is time to go.' I didn't want to overstay our welcome. 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. So it's not a lock that will exist? 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. What are the biggest mistakes action movies seem to be making when you see other films? Please make sure you print this: This is only my opinion and my opinion is no better or worse than anybody else's. Some things I think don't work might work for some people. It's the execution. Like with Die Hard. There's not a lot of action, the whole thing takes place on three floors of a building, but John McClane is a great character. When he runs through the glass barefoot, I'm fucking in — that's what you have to do. I could do the exact same choreography that's in John Wick, but if you didn't love Keanu Reeves as John Wick, we wouldn't be talking right now. There are better athletes than Jackie Chan— But we love Jackie Chan. You fucking love him! For the longest time, [the industry consensus] was, 'It's not about the action, it's about the story.' That's not true. And then there was, 'It's not about stories, it's about the action.' That's not true! You have to conceive the whole thing together. So biggest problem with action movies is people think they're making two separate movies. The story doesn't stop just because there's punching and kicking. In some of the superhero stuff, when a second unit guy is doing half the movie, everything looks different during the action. Even the coloring and editing is different. [The film] never feels aligned. So if you don't want to shoot your own action, then don't do the movie. Whether it's Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan or Guy Ritchie or the Wachowskis, they all shoot their own action. You mentioned how with a different actor wouldn't work. In the documentary, you first offer Jason Statham the style for his movie . Did Jason ever circle back and go, 'I should have done that'? So I want to straighten that up. We showed it to Jason and he thought it was cool as shit and wanted to do it. I'm the one who shut it down because it didn't fit Jason's character. With gun-fu, to do even a small sequence, he would have had to kill 20 people. Safe only has like four real bad guys; most of the guys are just guards showing up for work like the Red Shirts in Star Trek. We didn't want Jason's character to be a mass murderer. You talk about studio notes you didn't do. Was there any note that you did that you regret? Yeah. On one particular John Wick, I had a shit fight over literally three minutes. Most studios, and even critics, have this weird thing about run times. Do you really give a fuck how long a movie is? The real question is: Are you bored? I have sat through a 90-minute movie that felt like four hours, and I had watched Lawrence of Arabia or Seven Samurai and it felt like two hours even though they're four. No one bitched and moaned about Return of the King and Peter Jackson's cut is four hours, so fuck off. They'll say, 'There's metadata that says people get bored with anything over two hours and 20 minutes.' No one's going to come out of a movie going, 'That movie is fucking great, but it should have been a nice 2:36.' So when they said, 'You've got to cut three minutes,' I looked at them like, 'The audience gave it a 90 in a test score!' They may be running the studio and great at financing, but I've made four movies that have grossed over a billion dollars. I'm like, 'If the movie sucks, I'm willing to listen to anything. But if people love the movie, then who fucking cares?' I'm sure there are times where you're like: 'How many hit movies do I need to make — in a row, with each grossing more than the last — in order for you to trust me?' We know it's not four! I know that. I don't have plans on sucking on the next one. But if I get past five, we can have this conversation again. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now
Newsweek
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
'John Wick' Director Gives Update on Fifth Film
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors The "John Wick" series is easily one of the most popular and critically acclaimed action franchises in the history of film. More Entertainment: Ryan Coogler Confirms Denzel Washington Has a Part in 'Black Panther 3' This is largely because of incredible action sequences, fascinating world-building, and a great performance by action legend Keanu Reeves. With the spin-off film "From the World of John Wick: Ballerina" now in theaters and another film based on the fan-favorite character Caine in the works, fans are now wondering if Reeves will make his return as the Baba Yaga. According to series director Chris Stahelski, "John Wick 5" is in the works, but whether it will make it to the big screen is another story. Keanu Reeves as 'John Wick' in JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 Keanu Reeves as 'John Wick' in JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 Murray Close for Lionsgate In an interview with James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter, Stahelski gave an update on when he believes fans can expect "John Wick: Chapter 5." "I'm not going to lie to you, it's a bit of a conundrum," Stahelski said. "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?" More Entertainment: Star Wars Icon Says He's Done With The Franchise Stahelski went on to reveal that he and Finch would stop working on the film if it doesn't feel right after the perfect ending of "John Wick: Chapter 4." "I hate happy endings," Stahelski said. "Over a long enough timeline, everything's a f****** tragedy. If you kill 86 people, you don't get away. So when we got to 4, we wanted to have something that had a lot of fate and consequence. "The ending was going to be a cliffhanger. Then we were sitting in Japan [during the filming of 4] going, 'We didn't stick the landing.' [Our original ending] kind of sucked. 'F***, we got to finish this, right?' "So I was really happy with the way 4 ended. It was Keanu and I saying, 'Thank you, it's been awesome, but it is time to go.' I didn't want to overstay our welcome." More Entertainment: 'Predator: Killer of Killers' Is Now Available to Watch - Here's How to Stream That being said, "John Wick 5" not working out doesn't mean that developing the script was a bad thing for the creative team. "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," Stahelski said. "It's a great creative exercise. It's being in the room riffing with people we love. That's nothing but wins." More Entertainment: John Wick Boss Slams Spin-Off Series Over Ignored Feedback 'Wicked: For Good' is Coming in November: Watch the Official Trailer For more movie and entertainment news, head on over to Newsweek Entertainment.
Perth Now
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
‘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."
