John Wick 4 Is Still Being Written, Will Start Filming This Year According to Ian McShane
John Wick 4 is on track to start filming this year according to franchise star Ian McShane. After playing Winston in the first three John Wick movies, McShane is set to reprise the role in the fourth installment. Exactly when filming will start hasn’t yet been revealed, but in a recent interview about his role on American Gods, McShane touched upon the status of John Wick 5 and seems to be pretty confident that shooting will begin in 2021.
McShane had this to say about what’s next for the franchise in a recent interview:
“Keanu [Reeves] and I exchanged New Year’s greetings and said, ‘Hope to see you this year.’ I know the script is being written and they’re hoping to do it this year. I know they announced they were gonna do [John Wick 4] and [John Wick 5] together, but who knows. The studios announce all sorts of things. No doubt, at some point this year, we’re gonna do John Wick 4.”
Ian McShane also addressed the legacy of the franchise when asked if he knew from the start just how big it was going to be.
“They got such a good cast for the first one and it was a very good script. I thought the second one wasn’t quite as good, but people by then loved it and went with it. I think the third one was really terrific, so it lived up to it. I always thought it had legs because of Keanu, a dead wife, a dog, a gun, and a great car. It had all of the elements, so how can you fail?”
John Wick 4 was originally scheduled to release in theaters on May 21, 2021. Because of the pandemic, it was delayed to 2022 to allow for more time to develop the sequel. Pushing back the movie was a bummer for franchise fans, but the news turned out to be a blessing in disguise. With John Wick 4 on the shelf, Lionsgate made the decision to order another sequel as well with plans to shoot John Wick 5 back-to-back once production could begin.
Director Chad Stahelski has said that while there are plans to shoot two movies, the idea is to make John Wick 4 as good as it can possibly be before moving on to constructing John Wick 5. This is to avoid stretching out ideas across multiple movies with the hopes of each sequel standing on its own.
“We’re going to write a really good number four. If a really good number four feels solid to Keanu and I, we’ll make that one. That doesn’t mean we won’t plan on a five or start writing five, but we want to make sure we have a solid story,” Stahelski told ComicBook.com in August.
He added, “The worst thing you can do is, ‘I got five ideas. I’m going to put two in number four and put three in number five,’ I don’t want to try and stretch into two movies. I want to have solid ideas. So we’re attacking number four with everything we have. If there’s anything left on the table, we’ll fully attack number five.”
John Wick 4 is currently scheduled to release on May 27, 2022, with no release date yet set by Lionsgate for John Wick 5. This news comes to us from Collider.
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