The John Wick Universe Is Expanding With Another TV Show And An Anime
Just when the entertainment world felt like it couldn't possibly sustain even just a single shared universe on top of what we already have, yet another contender is about to enter the ring. The "John Wick" franchise's first attempt at expanding its influence to the small screen with "The Continental," uh, didn't go very well, to put it mildly. (To put it less mildly, it stunk! You can read my review for /Film here.) But as the old adage goes, if at first you don't succeed at strip-mining IP for every cent it's worth, try, try again.
The good news is that, this time around, director Chad Stahelski will be much more involved with at least two new upcoming "John Wick" shows. We've known about the Ana de Armas-starring "Ballerina" spinoff film, but this is the first we've heard about both an anime spin-off and a separate live-action series that will dive even deeper into the mythical world-building from the movies. In an appearance on The Playlist's "The Discourse" podcast, Stahelski revealed the Wick-verse has no plans of slowing down anytime soon. After not having much to do with "The Continental" at all (beyond giving the writers a quick breakdown and, in his words, a "look inside our little world"), Stahelski is taking a much more hands-on role on two currently in-development projects that certainly sound like they have lots of potential.
A "John Wick" anime (which would be fully in-line with some of the biggest inspirations behind the movies, mind you) and a spin-off series with ties to the ominous High Table? Yeah, despite Wick's story concluding in "Chapter 4," we're thinking the franchise is back. Sign us up!
'A chance to expand the fun world we've created'
As great as the "Wick" movies are, it's easy to feel skeptical about trying to recreate that one-of-a-kind magic on the small screen with a series of diminishing returns. If it helps put anyone's minds at ease, director Chad Stahelski seems to be aware of going too far and ruining the mystique and aura that he and co-director David Leitch so carefully built with the first "John Wick" back in 2014. In his comments to The Playlist, he expounded on plans for the live-action series:
"Lionsgate is having us develop the 'John Wick' TV show, so we thought we could explore The High Table in that a little bit."
Uh oh, you mean that group of faceless, all-powerful figures that the movies purposefully left a complete and total mystery? Yeah, I can see why that would feel like a bit of a red flag, but Stahelski is quick to reassure fans that restraint will be an important aspect of this currently-untitled show. As he puts it, "'Austin Powers' mocked it so well. An actual table with the stereotype tropes of evil from different ethnicities from all over the world. We're never going to show the whole High Table; we'll show the representatives, but we'll always keep some of that [mystery]." Whew, that's a relief.
Excitingly, he goes on to speculate about characters from "Chapter 4" who could potentially star in the show:
"Yeah, I love Donnie [Yen], I love Rina [Sawayama], love the Tracker [Shamier Anderson], and the TV show and the ancillaries will give us a chance to expand the fun world we've created, and it doesn't have to be John Wick, the character-specific, you know what I mean, so that we can explore all that stuff."
John Wick? More like John Weeb
So far, so good. Sure, maybe it'd be ideal if everyone involved had just let the entire "John Wick" property go out with a satisfying sense of finality in "Chapter 4." But if the show must go on, at least Stahelski's saying all the right things — especially about focusing on other characters beyond our favorite dog-loving assassin. The same applies to his comments on the anime project, which isn't confirmed to be a movie or a show, but seems to be leaning towards the latter. Elsewhere in the same podcast appearance, the director went into further detail on what fans can expect from this very different approach to the world of Wick:
"So we're really looking forward to that; we're really excited about it because we're doing that and a Japanese anime, because I love Japanese anime so much. So to create all the cool stories that anime could achieve better than we could and the TV show to expand our world, we'll still get our fix, you know what I mean? And we'll still have all the fun."
Yup, this definitely sounds like a guy who was basically given a crash-course in film school by the famously anime-inspired Wachowski sisters. He goes on to describe how the series will allow the creative team to deliver the best of both worlds, in terms of "world-building and action," but otherwise remains mum on the specifics. Granted, we're probably years away from either of these projects actually coming to fruition, so hopefully that "Ballerina" film will be able to tide us over until then.