John Wick 5 is in development, so here’s everything we know so far about the return of Keanu Reeves’ Baba Yaga, including any release date updates.
It all started with a vengeful widower, brought out of bereaved retirement after Russian goons kill his puppy (the last gift from his dead wife, no less) and steal his cherished car. The Baba Yaga’s rampage introduced us to the custom-governed, fascinating world of The Continental and the High Table.
Not only did it kick off the Keanussaince, but it birthed the best action franchise of the 21st century that’s somehow upped the ante and quality with every entry. Just look at John Wick 4: it has a top-down dragon’s breath set piece inspired by Hong Kong Massacre and Hotline Miami, for crying out loud.
The fourth chapter ended on a surprisingly poignant, somber note – so, here’s everything we know about John Wick: Chapter 5.
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Is John Wick 5 happening?
John Wick: Chapter 5 is in development, but it’s unclear when it’ll ever be released.
In an interview last year, Stahelski told Empire Magazine: “I honestly don’t know. Lionsgate is keen on doing more John Wick stuff, understandably. It’s not a bad thing for a director to have a property that they want to make more of. I don’t have a take right now. But I could wake up tomorrow and have a cool idea that I’d pitch to Keanu, or he would pitch to me, and it might hit that chord of, ‘Oh my God, we got to do this right now.’
“Now we’ve done the four, and completed the circle, so to speak, I think it’s pretty good closure for the series,” he continued. “And then there’s the competitor, or the real director in me who goes, ‘F**k it, let’s just see if we can do it.’ It’s very appealing. I just don’t have the ‘why’ yet. But that doesn’t mean we should stop looking.”
Speaking to Inverse in October 2023, Stahelski revealed that he’s now not completely against the idea.
“I have notebooks and notebooks of sh** behind me, John Wicks 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 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.”
Franchise producer Basil Iwanyk provided a more promising update in November 2023, teasing to Screen Rant: “If there is another John Wick movie, which I do believe there will be, we don’t know what it is yet, but I do believe.”
As of November 12, a script for John Wick 5 is being written.
“I spoke to him the other day, he’s resting for a while after the beating he’s taken over the last 10 years from all the assassins of the world. Let him rest until he decides to rise from his grave once again, or wherever he sleeps, because really, I’m his father, and he’s the vampire. So, I’m Vlad, The Impaler. [Laughs] There’s a whole horror film to be made out of this. Everything can zoom into something else. There’s no rules.”
Is there a John Wick 5 release date?
No, John Wick 5 doesn’t have a release date right now.
Sadly, it is likely that fans will have to wait at least a few more years before they see a mainline John Wick movie back in theatres. After all, The Ana de Armas-led spin-off Ballerina, which is set to place between Chapters 3 and 4, is currently due for release on June 7, 2024.
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“What is official is that, as you know, Ballerina is the first spin-off that comes out next year. We’re in development on three others, including five and including the television series, The Continental, which will be airing soon,” Lionsgate boss Joe Drake said in May 2023.
“We’re building out the world and when that fifth movie comes, it will be organic — will be organically grown out of how we’re starting to tell those stories. But you can rely on a regular cadence of John Wick.”
Given this, it’s fair to assume that John Wick 5 will be released no earlier than 2025. However, we’ll be sure to keep you updated if any more specific release date timelines are revealed.
John Wick 5 cast: Will Keanu Reeves be back for the new movie?
While fans may be excited to hear that John Wick 5 is potentially in the works, this announcement may also bring up some confusion. After all, the end of John Wick 4 made it seem as though the titular hero had finally met his end.
We even saw John Wick’s grave. However, odds are that John Wick 5 will explore the idea of Baba Yaga faking his own death, something that wouldn’t be completely unrealistic for the franchise.
Given this, it seems likely Reeves will return for John Wick 5. As well as this, Ian McShane and Laurence Fishburne will likely return as Continental owner Winston and the Bowery King respectively. However, this is all simply rumors and speculation at the time of writing.
As director Stahelski teases to Empire Magazine, “dead” might not be an option for John Wick: “You know, we’ve seen John take worse injuries.”
“I don’t know, I guess I’m going to have to lean on never say never. I mean, I wouldn’t do a John Wick film without Chad Stahelski. We’d have to see what that looked like. For me, it feels really right that John Wick finds peace,” Reeves told EW.
Be sure to check back in with this section as we update it with all the confirmed casting announcements and reveals for John Wick 5.
John Wick 5 plot: What will the movie be about?
As we mentioned above, the ending of John Wick 4 makes it appear as though the character has finally met his fate. However, that’s not to say that he can’t come back and find more people to beat up and horses to ride through roads and cities.
However, John Wick director Chad Stahelski does have some ideas of what he wants to see in the new chapter. When talking to Empire, Stahelski said “I could wake up tomorrow and have a cool idea that I’d pitch to Keanu [Reeves], or he would pitch to me, and it might hit that chord of, ‘Oh my God, we got to do this right now.’
I have scenes, I have action sequences in my head that we haven’t used yet that I’d love to do. If we do come back, we can’t just do the same thing. I gotta do my homework. I gotta get better.”
Producer Basil Iwanyk also added to Screen Rant that when it comes to another movie, “I do feel like it will be a completely other book. If these movies were four chapters, you kind of blame it on the metaphor. The next John Wick will be another book. It won’t be like six months later from John Wick 4.”
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