Keanu Reeves Suffered A Major Injury Shooting This Seth Rogen Comedy

Actor Keanu Reeves has starred in some serious action blockbusters over the years, including the wirework-heavy "The Matrix" movies and the stunt-heavy gun-fu spectacle of "John Wick." Yet, as strange as it sounds, he ended up suffering one of his worst on-set injuries while filming something much less action-packed: the Aziz Ansari and Seth Rogen comedy "Good Fortune." That's right, Keanu managed to make it out of four "Matrix" films and four "John Wick" flicks (plus a spin-off!) without any serious battle scars, but he ended up breaking his kneecap shooting "Good Fortune," which is some legitimately bad fortune, all joking aside.

In "Good Fortune," Arj (Ansari, who also made his feature writing-directing debut with the film) is a struggling gig worker who does odd jobs for the wildly wealthy Jeff (Rogen), only to end up switching places with his rich sometimes-boss due to the interventions of "budget guardian angel" Gabriel (Reeves). It's sort of like the Eddie Murphy comedy "Trading Places" meets the Christmas classic "It's A Wonderful Life," and, according to /Film's review, Reeves absolutely eats it up as heaven's biggest himbo of an angel.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Reeves, Rogen, and Ansari shed a little light on what, precisely, happened to Keanu's knee, and it's honestly pretty nightmarish. Who knew comedy could be hazardous to your health?

Reeves shared that his knee just "went" while filming the comedy, adding that it was pretty sickeningly serious. As he put it:

"I snapped my kneecap vertically, like a potato chip. As the pain was coming up, I was like, 'Oh f***. This is not good. This is quite bad.' There was a lot of blood."

It takes a whole lot of force to snap one's kneecap in half, so it's really impressive (and horrifying) that Reeves managed to do so. Ansari joked that it was almost like a bit in Rogen's hilarious Apple TV+ series "The Studio," which satirizes the behind-the-scenes chaos of the Hollywood machine. (It is an awful lot like a darker and gnarlier version of the "We accidentally dosed Zoë Kravitz with shrooms right before the big presentation" bit in "The Studio," actually...) Rogen then got into character as his stressed-out studio head Matt Remmick from "The Studio" and pretended to "take control" of the moment. 

"Can we prop him up? Can we hang him from wires? We'll marionette him in the scene!" Rogen riffed. Thankfully, though, no one had to puppet Reeves to get "Good Fortune" finished in real life, as the actor dutifully completed whatever scenes he could manage (post-hospital visit, of course) and returned for reshoots after his cast came off. Really, an actor as big as Keanu could have easily walked away from the movie entirely (no pun intended), but instead, he both pushed through the pain and stuck around, which only continues to cement Reeves' reputation as one of the coolest dudes in cinema history. 

It sounds like Reeves was a guardian angel for "Good Fortune" just as much as he plays one in the movie, as his continued dedication to performing in the role despite his injury probably kept the film afloat. "Good Fortune" was actually Ansari's backup plan for his first feature after his passion project, "Being Mortal," shut down production due to sexual misconduct allegations against star Bill Murray. Rogen had already been onboard "Being Mortal," playing Murray's son, while Keke Palmer, who plays the main love interest in "Good Fortune," was cast as Rogen's character's wife. As such, "Good Fortune" was Ansari's chance to collaborate with these talented actors and direct his first feature despite the drama of "Being Mortal," but Keanu's knee could have killed it all. 

Thankfully, Reeves is a real one and "Good Fortune" is set to hit theaters on October 17, 2025.