Chad Stahelski Is Still Skeptical ‘John Wick 5’ Will Actually Be Made: I Don’t Want to ‘Overstay Our Welcome’

"The studio would very much will it into existence, I’m sure, at some point."

Chad Stahelski still can’t believe that a fifth “John Wick” film is in the works. Or is it? While Stahelski and co-writer Mike Finch have developed a story for “John Wick 5,” the franchise director is skeptical of whether or not the film will actually get made. In fact, he hasn’t even brought the concept to lead star Keanu Reeves yet — despite Lionsgate announcing in April 2025 that Reeves would be back in the role.

“John Wick 5” was first confirmed in 2020 and later officially announced in 2025. Reeves’ titular character seemingly died in the fourth film; however, the Lionsgate release declared that Wick lives and will return for the fifth installment.

Stahelski now told THR that he is unsure if a possible fifth film could even be “satisfying” to make. “Me and Mike Finch — the writer on ‘4’ who’s also writing ‘5’ — we’ve got a pretty good story that I think is cool. Once we have a 50-page book, and if we’re feeling it, we’ll sit with Keanu and shape this thing. Look, everybody seems to want it. It’s a matter of whether we crack it. We’re actively working on it. It’s just … is it going to be satisfying?” he said.

When asked by THR why there is a continuation of the franchise with Reeves even after the fourth film “ended so well,” Stahelski said, “I’m with you, man. Keanu and I have discussed this many times and feel the same way. We finished ‘3’ and thought that was going to be the last one.”

He continued, “Look, we never expected to end ‘John Wick.’ I just hate cheesy endings. I hate happy endings. Over a long enough timeline, everything’s a fucking tragedy. If you kill 86 people, you don’t get away. So when we got to ‘4,’ we wanted to have something that had a lot of fate and consequence. The ending was going to be a cliffhanger. Then we were sitting in Japan [during the filming of ‘4’] going, ‘We didn’t stick the landing.’ [Our original ending] kind of sucked. ‘Fuck, we got to finish this, right?’ So I was really happy with the way ‘4’ ended. It was Keanu and I saying, ‘Thank you, it’s been awesome, but it is time to go.’ I didn’t want to overstay our welcome.”

Stahelski added, “If we go down the road of ‘John Wick 5’ and build this story and decide this isn’t right, there are probably going to be 10 other things we’ll discover that we’ll use for other things. It’s a great creative exercise. It’s being in the room riffing with people we love. That’s nothing but wins.”

However, Stahelski’s vision for the process of potentially making the film might be at odds with what Lionsgate wants. “The studio would very much will it into existence, I’m sure, at some point,” he said. “Look, they’ve been great and they’ve asked us to really try and we have a really good couple of ideas and we’re going to try.”

Reeves in the meantime will be appearing in spinoff film “Ballerina.”