Lionsgate
Warning: this article will contain major spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4
Earlier this year, movie fans were stunned when the ending of John Wick: Chapter 4 seemingly killed off Keau Reeves’ beloved titular character.
While many fans have since assumed that the death of John Wick was merely a misdirection, recent comments from the franchise’s producer about how Reeves felt about the film’s ending suggests it may be permanent.
“After the second, third, and fourth movie, making these films is so exhausting and it destroys Keanu, physically and emotionally,” Iwanyk told Collider.
“By the end, he’s always like, ‘I can’t do this again,’ and we agree with him. The guy is just a shell of himself because he just goes off and goes for it. He was like, ‘I wanna be definitively killed at the end of this movie.’ “We were like, ‘You know, we’ll leave a 10% little opening.'”
Prior to the pandemic, the plan was to make both a John Wick: Chapter 4 and a John Wick: Chapter 5, however, those plans changed and the two films were essentially combined into one.
Earlier this year, BroBible’s Post Credit Podcast had a chance to speak with franchise director Chad Stahelski, who told us how involved Keanu was with coming up with the final shot of the film.
Still, given how popular the character is and how successful the movies are — John Wick: Chapter 4 was the highest-grossing film in the series so far– fans still aren’t 100% convinced that this is the last we’ll see of Baba Yaga.
We’ll certainly be seeing Keanu Reeves reprise his role as Wick next summer, as the character is set to appear in the Ana de Armas-starring spinoff Ballerina.
Directed by Len Wiseman, Ballerina is set between the events of John Wick 3 and John Wick 4 and is scheduled to hit theaters on June 7, 2024. In addition to de Armas and Reeves, Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Lance Reddick, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Reedus, and Ian McShane are also set to star.