By “John Wick” franchise co-creator and director Chad Stahelski has revealed that the action franchise’s planned anime project will be a prequel feature film.
Speaking with THR, Stahelski says the project will show “at least some” of the “impossible task” that allowed Wick to retire prior to the story of the first live-action film.
Stahelski says the prequel anime film is currently “knee-deep in development” and he explains part of the appeal of the project is to have fun with this world:
“It’s meant to be fun. Some of the prequels and sequels that you see in other franchises, we’re not meant to be built that way. We just want to have fun. We want to have fun with the Wick world, but we’ve already capped it on one end [with John Wick: Chapter 4], so let’s go back and use a different medium.”
Stahelski revealed the anime project a year ago but it wasn’t quite clear at the time what it would be, though the implication seemed to be more of a TV series than a film. Now, it’s definitely a film.
He also spoke about the reshoots on the upcoming “Ballerina” spin-off, saying the film initially didn’t have the kind of money and time he had on the fourth “John Wick” film but director Len Wiseman and his team “got something that was really interesting with massive potential. It was a big swing.”
So, he and Keanu went through what was there, brought in their writing and stunt teams and “just gave it a little shine together with Len and what he had already done.”
He says not much was changed – just a few weeks of extra filming during which they “changed some of the action sequences and made up for some time that Len just didn’t have.” That includes a sequence in Austria where the weather played havoc the first time around that they got to go back in and have another go.
Finally, he also confirmed today the “Under the High Table” TV series is still very much on the way, as is the spin-off film about Donnie Yen’s Caine – that one he says “we’re in the middle of writing it right now”.
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