'John Wick: Chapter 4' Release Date and Possible Plot Details
Director Chad Stahelski says there's no happy endings for John Wick. Here's what that means for 'John Wick 4.'
On behalf of the Continental, congratulations: You’re getting another John Wick movie. A fourth entry, appropriately titled John Wick: Chapter 4 will arrive in theaters on May 21, 2021. But you can already expect a fifth, sixth, and even seventh, if director Chad Stahelski is to be believed.
On Monday, Lionsgate announced John Wick: Chapter 4 will be released in theaters on May 21, 2021. The announcement came after the box office numbers for John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum were revealed, which showed that the Keanu Reeves vehicle was powerful enough to topple the reign of Avengers: Endgame.
In its opening weekend, Chapter 3 raked in an impressive $92 million worldwide, with a $55 million domestic gross. Those earnings made John Wick: Chapter 3 the number one movie in North America.
While there have been bigger box office numbers for other film franchises, the John Wick series has played it smart and lean with its budget. The first film from 2014 had only a $20-$30 million budget, and Chapter 3 rose to the neighborhood of just $50 million. You can expect Chapter 4 to have just a marginally bigger budget, and this consistent pattern for a franchise means a stable future where sequels are virtually guaranteed.
Creatively, however, Stahelski has previously stated that there is no end to John Wick’s story. As he told IndieWire in an interview, “John may survive all this shit, but at the end of it, there’s no happy ending. He’s got nowhere to go.”
Stahelski tells Inverse something similar. “We react to you,” he said. “If you spend a billion dollars on Avengers and do $300 million in pre-sales, they’re gonna keep making Avengers. If you boycott a shitty movie, they’ll stop making them.” So, Stahelski said, his goal is just to never make “a shitty movie.”
The universe of John Wick got bigger in 'John Wick: Chapter 3 -- Parabellum.' It could only get bigger in 'John Wick: Chapter 4.'
Stahelski made his point abundantly clear at the end of Chapter 3. Spoilers ahead, but the end of Chapter 3 brings John Wick lower than he’s ever been: Near death, in the sewers, subject to the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne). The two will likely team up to exact vengeance against the High Table. And if they’re successful, they may change the world of assassins forever in John Wick: Chapter 4.
Who knows where the story of John Wick could go from there. It’s only a matter of time until he kills bad guys in space, or crosses over into another franchise. (There’s been some actual talk of a crossover with Atomic Blonde.) Until then, all we know is that John Wick will do what he does best. With style.
John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum is in theaters now.
