Looks like we won’t be saying sayonara to John Wick anytime soon, with more films rumoured on the horizon.
While many believe that Keanu Reeves gracing the screen as the world’s favourite hitman for a fourth time will be the last, Lionsgate isn’t ready to say goodbye to the franchise just yet.
Joe Drake, the company’s group chair, was so thrilled that the fourth Wick had made $137 million (AUD $205 million) in its opening weekend that he couldn’t fathom letting go of that cash cow.
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“We’re not ready to say goodbye to Keanu with this franchise,” he told Deadline.
He added he and his team are already developing an ‘alternative’.
“There’s a lot of different things that we can do," Drake said.
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However, aside from the movie making millions, the company boss noted he could see why audiences love the flick, as he too, has already seen it five times.
Chapter 4 has scored an impressive 95 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes after more than 200 reviews, making it the highest-rated film in the franchise.
While the first John Wick film earned 86 per cent, the second and third films scored 89 per cent.
Still, the franchise has proved it's ageing better than a bottle of Shiraz as critics are loving the fourth instalment.
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Some have even called it the ‘greatest action flick of all time’.
Reviewer Ed Travis from Cinapse upped the ante on the 'greatest action movie claim', calling John Wick: Chapter 4 ‘simply one of the greatest action films of this generation, and perhaps of all time'.
I mean, that’s hard to beat.
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**Spoiler alert incoming**
But Uproxx reported that when director Chad Stahelski revealed to Lionsgate he wanted to kill off the titular character in the fourth instalment, they refuted the idea.
“The response was, ‘What are you f**king thinking?’ The note was, ‘Are you f**king insane?’” Stahelski said, as per the outlet.
“And Keanu and I just smiled and said, ‘Yeah'. We decided we wanted to tie everything together, and we were like, ‘How do you give a proper goodbye?’
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"So that’s how we sold it to the studio because, at some point, this has gotta end, man.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Reeves always wanted to set the character ‘free’ before agreeing to do another movie.
At the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival, he said: “It can’t just be, ‘Let’s do another one'. It was really about death, or a way of dying. We were really inspired by the Hagakure.”
The Hagakure, Stahelski noted, is a Japanese code of ethics for samurais.
The novel, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai is a guide to ‘foster the true spirit of Bushido-the Way of the Warrior’.
Featured Image Credit: LionsgateTopics: News, John Wick, TV and Film, Keanu Reeves