John Wick 5 is officially happening with Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski to return

SPOILER ALERT FOR JOHN WICK 4

Long live John Wick, who is, apparently, definitely not dead.

We last saw the trained assassin seemingly expired out the front of the Sacre Coeur as the sun rose over Paris. It was a super poetic end for John Wick, a man of few words but many emotions.

But death has never stopped Hollywood, and a few bullet holes and a stopped heart can be patched.

Overnight, it was confirmed John Wick 5 is officially in development, and Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski are both slated to return.

Since the release of the fourth film, which collected $US440 million at the box office, there had been speculation that the titular character wasn’t dead-dead and that studio executives were working on the John Wick team to bring him back for another instalment.

Collectively, the four films in the hyper-stylised action franchise has made more than $US1 billion.

The previously confirmed John Wick spin-off to star Hong Kong action legend Donnie Yen announced Yen would also serve as director on the film.

That project will centre on Caine, the assassin from John Wick 4 who tried to kill Wick under orders from the villainous High Table. That character survived that film and the spin-off is supposedly to follow his story now that he is freed from the nefarious organisation.

Yen directed the features The Prosecutor and Sakra as well as action sequences in many more movies.

The next John Wick film will be the long-delayed Ballerina, which stars Ana de Armas as a dancer who has started training as an assassin. It also stars Anjelica Huston, Gabrielle Byrne, Norman Reedus and Ian McShane.

Reeves has a small role in Ballerina, which is chronologically set between the events of John Wick 3 and 4.

It will also feature Lance Reddick’s final posthumous release, reprising his role as Charon. Reddick died in March 2023 and had filmed his scenes in late-2022 and early-2023.

The announcement about John Wick 5 was made by Lionsgate chair Adam Fogelson at CinemaCon, an annual conference for American theatre exhibitors.