Although development continues on John Wick: Chapter 5, the fact of the matter is that Chapter 4’s ending delivered a pretty definitive ending to the story focused on Keanu Reeves’ title character. However, that doesn’t mean we’re done with this world of colorful assassins, as movies like the Ana de Armas-led Ballerina and the TV series Under the High Table are set to flesh out this mythology. Additionally, there’s a prequel movie in the works pointing the spotlight back on ol’ John, and I’m excited about the period of his life it will cover.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first John Wick movie’s release, Chad Stahelski, who co-directed that 2014 flick with David Leitch and directed the following three movies solo, sat down with THR to discuss this property’s past, present and future. This included mentioning a “feature anime” about John Wick which takes place before the events of the movies, and when the interviewer questioned if it would explore the “impossible task” that John had to carry out before he would leave the assassin life behind and marry his wife, the filmmaker responded:
Ish. You’re pretty right on, but it’s animated fun. It’s meant to be fun. Some of the prequels and sequels that you see in other franchises, we’re not meant to be built that way. We just want to have fun. We want to have fun with the Wick world, but we’ve already capped it on one end [with John Wick: Chapter 4], so let’s go back and use a different medium.
Although he’s not willing to 100% commit to confirming that this anime prequel is about John Wick’s impossible task, it sounds like the project will at least touch on this major event in the character’s life, if not fully explore it. For those who need a refresher, in order to retire from being an assassin, John had to kill all of crime lord Viggo Tarasov’s enemies in a single night. He was only able to accomplish this with the help of Santino D’Antonio, who only agreed to help John in exchange for a marker that he could use to call in a favor at a later date, which ultimately led to the events of John Wick: Chapter 2.
John Wick racked up a massive kill count over the course of his four movies, but from what little has been said about the impossible task, the amount of bodies dropped on that night seem almost legendary. While part of me wishes that this event was better left imagined, I am intrigued by the prospect of it being explored on the big screen, especially through animation rather than live action. That way the action sequences can be depicted in more colorful and outlandish ways befitting the animated medium.
The John Wick franchise first expanded beyond the main film series in 2023 with the limited series The Continental, which can be streamed with a Peacock subscription. Along with this anime prequel, Ballerina and Under the High Table, there’s a spinoff movie centered on Donnie Yen’s Caine in the works. Halle Berry has also expressed interest in reprising Sofia for her own spinoff, though it would need to happen soon. We’ll step back into this world once Ballerina arrives June 6 on the 2025 movies schedule.