John Wick 4 was originally intended to begin shooting once Keanu Reeves was finished shooting the untitled fourth Matrix film from director Lana Wachowski.
While speaking with Collider, director and producer Chad Stahelski is confirming that they’re unlikely to hit that May 21st, 2021 release date next year and Matrix 4’s production hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic is responsible for that.
STAHELSKI: “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 stuff to our stuff, who knows right now.”
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum ended with Keanu Reeves’ John Wick and Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King agreeing to go to war with The High Table, the mysterious group of god-like villains that control the world of assassins. There is an expectation that John Wick 4 will see those two lead characters going to war alongside each other.
When filming on Matrix 4 will resume is a little unclear as the production had moved to the German leg after shooting exterior scenes in San Francisco, California back in February. However, when that completes is going to have a large impact on when they’ll be able to schedule the shoot for John Wick 4, which is likely why we won’t know for a while what those new production dates will look like.
