John Wick Anime: Will Keanu Reeves be a Part of This Series?
Keanu Reeves’s portrayal of the retired hitman John Wick has made the franchise one of the most popular ones in the world. This role gave Reeves’s career the rebound that it needed after a series of commercially unsuccessful movies. Having started in 2014, so far the franchise has spawned 3 sequels to the first movie, a spin-off movie, and a spin-off television series.
So far all of the John Wick movies except the spin-off content have been directed by Chad Stahelski who worked as a stunt double for his long-time collaborator Keanu Reeves in The Matrix franchise. During a recent interview, Stahelski revealed that while the fifth movie installment in the John Wick franchise is in development, a new television series and an anime series are on the horizon.
Keanu Reeves’ John Wick Is Going to Have an Anime Series
Keanu Reeves achieved unparalleled success due to his portrayal of John Wick. The first movie saw the retired legendary hitman returning to his old ways when his puppy, the final parting gift from his deceased wife, is killed by some men. Wick gets out there to seek revenge for his puppy’s murder.
Ever since then, Wick has embarked on different missions in the sequels. A prequel of the franchise The Continental is already being released. In addition to this, the spin-off Ballerina is also scheduled to be released in 2024. Furthermore, Chad Stahleski has recently revealed his plans for a new show and an anime series.
During his appearance on The Discourse podcast (via The Playlist), Stahleski told the host Mike DeAngelo:
“So we’re really looking forward to that; we’re really excited about it because we’re doing that and a Japanese anime because I love Japanese anime so much. So to create all the cool stories that anime could achieve better than we could and the TV show to expand our world, we’ll still get our fix, you know what I mean? And we’ll still have all the fun.”
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Whether or not Keanu Reeves will be reprising his role in the anime or will someone else take over the role remains to be seen. Stahelski evidently has huge plans for the franchise and hopefully, fans will get to see them materialize soon.
Chad Stahelski Prefers the TV Format for Expanding John Wick’s World
The John Wick-verse is expanding further as more TV shows and spin-offs are being developed. Television series are a great way to expand the universe as can be seen in the MCU which is also releasing TV series alongside its movies. Director Chad Stahelski expressed his views about TV shows during the interview.
While talking to Mike DeAngelo on The Discourse podcast, Stahelski revealed that this new TV show is going to be separate from The Continental and will involve some of the newer characters. He said:
“And I think TV is a better format for that, I think because people can jump into the backgrounds, you don’t have to spend so much time with the first act set up and all that.”
While this new TV series will probably not include Keanu Reeves, there are chances that the anime series will feature the action star in the series. In the meaning, hopefully, Reeves and Stahelski will develop a new story for John Wick 5.
