John Wick Series Named Keanu Reeves' Best Film Franchise

Today marks the 56th birthday of Keanu Reeves - a man almost universally considered to be a top bloke. But determining his top film franchise might be a little harder for us to agree on.

In a career spanning several decades, Reeves has been prolific, amassing a vast and impressive filmography. Among all of these films, three franchises stand out as his defining works: Bill & Ted, The Matrix and John Wick.

But which of these franchises is the very best? We polled you the public to get the verdict, and it transpired to be a two-horse race.

PA

In third, with what some might call a disrespectfully small portion of the vote, came Bill & Ted with 9.6 percent of the 6,290 votes cast.

The silver medal went to The Matrix with 41.6 percent of the vote, meaning John Wick came out on top with 48.8 percent.

It's just as well then that there's not one, but two more instalments of the John Wick franchise in the pipeline.

When exactly we'll get to see either is unclear, as the coronavirus pandemic has essentially rendered release dates little more than distant optimistic targets - the film industry equivalent of saying you'll have a six-pack by next summer.

Still, it's good to know that Lionsgate plans to shoot the fourth and fifth instalment back-to-back.

The studio's CEO John Feltheimer said during an earnings call last month, via Deadline: "We're also busy preparing scripts for the next two instalments of our John Wick action franchise, with John Wick 4 slated to hit theatres Memorial Day weekend 2022.

"We hope to shoot both John Wick 4 & 5 back-to-back when Keanu becomes available early next year."

Lionsgate

The availability of Keanu is dependent on when he manages to wrap up the fourth instalment of The Matrix - which should serve as comfort to the bitter 41.6 percent of you who voted for it.

Elaborating on the hold-up, John Wick director Chad Stahelski told Collider: "Between how much we want to expand the John Wick - let's just call it a 'franchise', I guess - and the pandemic, I couldn't tell you a release date for the next one. I mean, Matrix was only four weeks in when this all happened.

"So, Keanu's gotta go finish his commitment up on The Matrix, which is a big deal and which I think will probably take him until the end of the year. Then we have to go into our prep mode and then we'll start.

"So release dates, I'm sure with every production from Dave's [Leitch] stuff to our stuff, who knows right now."

Anyways, regardless of how chocka his schedule is and how much we want to see more of Johnny and Neo, let's hope Keanu is putting his feet up and enjoying his 56th today.

Topics: TV and Film, Celebrity, keanu reeves

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey