John Wick: Keanu Reeves Wanted to Be "Definitively" Killed in Chapter 4
Four entries in the brutal action series took a toll on the performer.
For nearly a decade, Keanu Reeves has endured a number of intensely physical action sequences in the John Wick franchise, so much so that producer Basil Iwanyk claims that it was the actor who asked to be killed off in John Wick: Chapter 4. Over the course of each film, Reeves's Wick has narrowly avoided his demise countless times, though the ending of Chapter 4 saw his closest allies standing over his tombstone, implying that either the John Wick persona, or even the actual person, had passed on. Given the excitement surrounding the series, audiences have a hard time accepting such a death, though these comments might more concretely confirm the character has moved on.
"After the second, third, and fourth movie, making these films is so exhausting and it destroys Keanu, physically and emotionally," Iwanyk revealed to 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.'"
Given the title of the franchise, it's hard to imagine a future film in the proper series that omits Reeves entirely, but even if Chapter 4 featured the implied death of the character, we're not quite done seeing the character just yet. In the upcoming spin-off film Ballerina, which stars Ana de Armas, Reeves returns as Wick, as the story takes place before the events of Chapter 4.
A number of figures have been staples of the John Wick franchise since its inception, though it's the collaboration between Reeves and director Chad Stahelski that has been the major motivation for new chapters. Iwanyk pointed out that, while everyone involved in the franchise would like to get another entry, it will depend on when, or if, Stahelski and Reeves find the inspiration to tell another story.
"We all want another John Wick. We don't know what it looks like and when it will happen, but we love each other and we love this world," the producer expressed. "It's gonna be all hands to try to figure it out. Have we figured it out? No. And if we can't figure it out, will there be one? No, of course not. No one is gonna try to just jam it for the sake of jamming it."
Stay tuned for details on the future of the John Wick franchise.
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