John Wick: Chapter 5 has been officially confirmed with Keanu Reeves returning, so the apparent finality of Chapter 4’s ending was just a lie. A fifth John Wick movie has been in development since the blockbuster box office success of the fourth one, but it wasn’t officially confirmed. At the end of John Wick: Chapter 4, Wick seemingly died after making the ultimate sacrifice to free the High Table from the Marquis’ rule. He was reunited with his late wife Helen in the hereafter and could finally achieve peace. It was the perfect ending for the character’s story.

But now, the finality of that ending is getting undone. At CinemaCon 2025, Lionsgate boss Adam Fogelson announced that John Wick: Chapter 5 is officially in the works with Reeves and director Chad Stahelski on board. There’s also a separate John Wick movie in development: an animated prequel set before the first film, which will show the “impossible task” that Wick had to complete in order to retire from his life as an assassin. While that one sounds like a fun addition to the established canon, John Wick: Chapter 5 could ruin what made Chapter 4 so great.

John Wick 5 Can’t Happen Without Undoing John Wick’s Death

He’s Back, So He Has To Be Alive

There’s no way for Reeves and Stahelski to make John Wick: Chapter 5 without retconning Wick’s death from Chapter 4. It was theorized that Wick could return for a prequel set between the third and fourth movies, but the upcoming spinoff, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, is set between Chapters 3 and 4, so that’ll fill in what Wick was up to in between those movies. All the previous John Wick movies picked up where the previous one left off, so there’s no room to fit a whole new movie in between them.

There was a bonkers theory that John Wick: Chapter 5 would take place in Hell, and it would see Wick fighting his way through Satan’s demon armies to reunite with Helen in Heaven. That sounds way too awesome to be true, so it’s probably not the direction that Chapter 5 is taking. If that is the direction this movie is going, then it could actually be great. But it’s more likely that Chapter 5 will retcon Wick’s death and continue his story where Chapter 4 left off, with the High Table under new management.

John Wick 5 Reversing John Wick’s Death Turns Chapter 4’s Finale Into A Lie

Chapter 4 Was A Fitting Conclusion To Wick’s Journey

John Wick: Chapter 5 can either reveal that the grave seen at the end of Chapter 4 was empty all along, or it can totally ignore the fact that Wick was killed off in the last movie and just pretend it never happened. Either way, it’ll ruin what was once a perfect ending for the series. Just the fact that the series is continuing at all with a fifth movie has a high potential to ruin it. It’s nearly impossible to come up with the right ending to a long-running story, and John Wick is about to squander its own.

It’s nearly impossible to come up with the right ending to a long-running story, and John Wick is about to squander its own.

The ending of Chapter 4 marked the end of Wick’s journey, and it was a fitting conclusion to his story. It was poetic that this legendary gunslinger, who we’d seen escape death countless times across four movies and who seemed to be invincible, would be struck down in a pistol duel at sunrise. He wasn’t killed by an enemy; he was killed by a friend acting as a proxy, and it allowed him to take down the big bad. But now that he’s thinking he’s back, that’s no longer the ending to his story.

Why John Wick: Chapter 4’s Ending & His Death Was Never Going To Stick

John Wick Is Too Big To End Now

As perfect as Chapter 4 would be as the final entry in the John Wick series, there was no way that ending was going to stick. If Chapter 4 had been met with so-so box office returns, Lionsgate might’ve let the series end. But it became the highest-grossing John Wick movie by far and returned a massive profit for the studio, so of course they were going to make sure a fifth movie would happen. There was way too much pressure — and way too much potential revenue — not to continue the franchise.

Of course, the franchise was always going to continue in spinoffs like Ballerina and TV shows like The Continental. But it’s really Reeves’ portrayal of Wick himself that makes this property so popular. Without Reeves, John Wick is nowhere near as valuable as an I.P., so spinoffs alone won’t cut it; if Lionsgate can get Reeves back, they’re going to get Reeves back.

It always seemed as though the filmmakers intentionally left the door open for Wick to return. When Wick supposedly dies in Chapter 4, we never actually see a body; we see him slump over with a gunshot wound in his gut, then we see Winston and the Bowery King visiting his grave. It’s just ambiguous enough that he might’ve faked his death. We’ve seen him survive much worse than a shot to the belly. Just a couple of scenes earlier, Wick jumped out of a fourth-story window, while on fire, and landed face-first on a van.

How John Wick 5 Can Still Make Chapter 4’s Ending Matter

If Wick Faked His Death, He Could Still Have Found Peace

It won’t be easy, but it is possible for John Wick to get a fifth movie without completely undoing the definitive ending of the fourth one. The main point of Chapter 4’s ending is that Wick finally found peace; he’d spent a couple of movies on the run from every assassin in the world, fighting for his life every time he entered a room, and death freed him from that. But he would achieve the same peace if he faked his death and all those assassins just thought he was dead.

Naturally, John Wick: Chapter 5 can’t just spend two hours watching a retired Wick lead a peaceful existence, so he’ll need to be drawn back into action by something. Maybe it could go back to the franchise’s roots and tell a pared-back revenge story about a retired hitman coming out of retirement to exact vengeance. The sequels have built out the world with a lot of complicated underground politics, but this was originally just a straightforward revenge tale. John Wick: Chapter 5 will have to do something really special to justify its existence, but I trust Reeves and Stahelski.