John Wick: Chapter 4 has added Donnie Yen to its cast. The martial arts action superstar will reportedly play an old friend of Keanu Reeves’ super-assassin John Wick, who “shares his same history and many of the same enemies.” Director Chad Stahelski is returning to helm John Wick 4, with Shay Hatten and Micahel Finch handling the script. Recently we learned that international pop singer Rina Sawayama is also joining the cast, and Keanu Reeves was spotted arriving to film the new John Wick installment in early April. The John Wick franchise continues to roll on, with Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 both slated for production.
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Donnie Yen continues to see this later stage of his career flourish, as he appears in bigger and bigger blockbuster franchises on the international stage. Yen’s Ip Man films were major worldwide cult-hits, with the finale, Ip Man 4, arriving in 2019. Disney helped propel Yen to a whole new level, first casting him as Blind Force-sensitive fighter Chirrut Imwe in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and as Commander Tung in the live-action Mulan adaptation. Yen has never lost his action-movie cred along the way, with films like Vin DIesel’s xXx: Return of Xander Cage also under his belt.
Adding the John Wick franchise to his resume will be one more big step in a successful direction for Donnie Yen. More to the point: fans can’t wait to see what he kind of tag-team stunts and fight sequences he’ll bring to the table, working alongside Keanu Reeves.
Casting Donnie Yen in John Wick 4 is also a great level of star appeal and spectacle to keep the franchise looking exciting and fresh. This fourth John Wick film will be the first to be put out without series creator Derek Kolstad – a fact some fans have been ambivalent about. Koldstad spoke about it in an interview with Collider, stating:
“I’m actually not involved in four and five,” Kolstad explained. “No. At a certain stage of the studio will tell you, your creation is graduated, and you wish it well. I’m still close with Chad [Stahelski], still close with Dave [Leitch], and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m excited to see.”
John Wick is also getting a TV expansion in the form of the spinoff series The Continental, which follows the infamous assassins world hotel.
John Wick: Chapter 4, which will arrive on May 27, 2022.
Via Deadline
