Warning: The below story contains spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4.
While John Wick 5 is very much in early development, Keanu Reeves wanted the beloved hitman to be actually, for sure dead at the end of John Wick: Chapter 4.
In a new interview with Collider, John Wick series producer Basil Iwanyk said Reeves, who does a massive amount of his own stuntwork, is "a shell of himself" after working on the action movies.
"After the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th movie, making these films is so exhausting and it destroys Keanu, physically and emotionally," he said. "By the end, he's always like, 'I can't do this again,' and we agree with him. The guy is just a shell of himself because he just goes off and goes for it. He was like, 'I wanna be definitively killed at the end of this movie.' "
Iwanyk confirmed, however, that they didn't totally heed their star's wishes, adding, "We were like, 'You know, we'll leave a 10% little opening.' "
As those who have seen John Wick: Chapter 4 know (and this is your last spoiler warning), it very much ends with him seemingly dead but, like Iwanyk said, there's still some wiggle room. Basically, an already thoroughly battered Wick is shot several times in his duel with Caine (Donnie Yen), but is still able to fire a bullet in the head of The Marquis (Bill Skarsgård). Wick then manages to stagger down the steps of Sacré-Cœur and, in what very much seems to be his last breath, utters his late wife Helen's name... but, you know, we never got actual confirmation that that was curtains on Wick.
When we asked Reeves and director Chad Stahelski if Wick's really dead at a post-screening Q&A, Reeves played it coy, saying "I mean, I have an opinion, but I don't know if we should concretize it. Let the audience decide."
"I think we just wanted it to feel fulfilling to the end of John Wick's journey," Stahelski said, adding, "we leave it to you guys."
Stahelski revealed in an interview with Empire in July, meanwhile, that John Wick: Chapter 4 originally had a much less ambiguous ending, one that made it "very clear" he was still alive.
That makes sense, as it's obvious Lionsgate wants more of Reeves' Wick. While it's expanding the universe with The Continental, a three-episode prequel series that will premiere on Peacock on Sept. 22, and Ana de Armas spinoff Ballerina, it's also working on a fifth John Wick. While speaking to IGN for an exclusive preview of The Continental, Iwanyk told me back in June that it's definitely in development, but that it still needs a lot of work - and much of that work can't be done amid the ongoing writers' strike.
"John Wick 4 was embraced enough by the critics and the audience that it's kind of an organic and natural next step to do John Wick 5," he said at the time. "I think that there's no question that it's in development, but right now the story isn't there yet. And until the story is there, it isn't... It's real on something we're trying to figure out. But we haven't settled on what that movie looks like or feels like."
