Following the box-office success of John Wick: Chapter 2—making nearly $170 million on just a $40 million budget—production is already gearing up on a third installment with February 2017 Men’s Fitness cover star Keanu Reeves.
Chapter 2 director Chad Stahelski spoke with Collider about the upcoming project, saying that the script is already being worked on and could be filming sooner than everyone expected.
“We’re currently in the middle of writing it right now,” Stahelski said. “It’s more of a ‘how fast can we get our shit together?’ But I would assume that, if not by the end of this year, the beginning of next year.”
Although Stahelski isn’t officially on as director yet, there’s a good chance he’ll be at the helm after working on the first two films. Stahelski directed John Wick with partner David Leitch, and handled Chapter 2 solo; with Leitch now directing Deadpool 2, it’s likely Stahelski will handle things on his own again if he’s back.
“Currently I’m acting as prep director,” Stahelski said. “Hopefully everything will work out time-wise. Of course—I would love to (return).”
Reeves gets his hands dirty when he prepares to play Wick, going through intense gun tactical training and fight training, and he would be ready to do it again once production gets closer to starting. This time around, the world of John Wick could expand even more.
“We’re very comfortable with where we want [John Wick] to go in the third one and what Keanu wants to do,” Stahelski said. “We want not so much to go bigger on the third one, but to show you more of the intricacies of the world…I feel like there are all these different subtleties that I skipped over in Number Two that I’d like to go back to on and show you the inner workings of different parts of New York. So rather than massive set pieces, I’d like to show you cooler and more intricate ones. We want to show you cool and intricate details.”
