If Chad Stahelski Gets His Way, We Could Go All The Way to ‘John Wick 9’

Warning: Spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4 ahead.

At this point in time, it’s safe to say that the John Wick franchise is the single most lucrative use of filming Keanu Reeves going postal on faceless suits and breathily saying “yeah” every couple of scenes in the history of cinema. But even if it wasn’t, it would still be a damn fine universe.

Indeed, between Chad Stahelski’s deft direction and the canon’s impeccably intriguing world-building, John Wick has firmly cemented itself as one of the most elite action franchises out there, even if The Continental isn’t doing it any favors.

We can only hope that Ballerina manages to match the caliber of the mainline series, but for Stahelski, the ideal future of John Wick lies in keeping that very mainline train chugging along, and he has the fuel to do it. In a recent interview with Screen Rant, Stahelski revealed that he has enough ideas for as many as five future John Wick movies; the only thing standing in his way is figuring out where the story could go.

I have notebooks and notebooks of s–t behind me, John Wick 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.

Of course, nailing down a plot for anything after John Wick: Chapter 4 will be no easy task, considering that Keanu Reeves’ titular hitman finally bit the dust at the end of the film; can you even have John Wick without John Wick?

Stahelski certainly thinks so, judging by the fact that Chapter 5 still seems to be on the cards at some point in the future. As for the “how,” the easiest assumption is a focus on the character Akira, a character introduced in Chapter 4 and the daughter of Japan’s Continental proprietor, who was murdered by the assassin Caine during the events of the film. The post-credits scene showed Akira hunting Caine, after all, and while that confrontation sounds like prime spinoff material, its presence in a mainline film makes its odds as the next John Wick torch-bearer a bit more likely than other potential directions.

(featured image: Lionsgate)