John Wick: Chapter 4 has a heartbreaking ending for Keanu Reeves’ hitman, but that doesn’t mean it’s his last bullet-filled adventure.
The following contains spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4, now in theaters.
As John Wick: Chapter 4 rolls on, Keanu Reeves' titular hitman has the fight of his life. The three previous movies put him through the gauntlet, but this new battle royale gets even more dangerous when the revered High Table sends a direct assailant after him. It's none other than Bill Skarsgård's Marquis, an emissary now conducting all open contract business on John, going so far as to decommission Continental Hotels that aided John in the past. It builds to a brutal, bloody finale, and while it seems like John may have met a tragic end, the movie teases that if the series wants a fifth film, it can carry on.
John gets a shot at the Marquis after winning his way back into the Belarus clan. Thanks to them, a duel's invoked using the old rules, which sees John trying to reach the church site by sunrise in Paris. However, the Marquis has tons of goons coming after John. Luckily, Donnie Yen's Caine helps John because if he's the one to kill John in the duel, Caine and his daughter, Mia, would be free of The High Table's gaze.
Eventually, John makes it to the church, but the shootout with Caine leaves John badly wounded. However, when the Marquis is about to finish him off, taking Caine's gun for the "Coup de grâce," Winston (played by Ian McShane) reveals John hadn't fired his last shot and has a bullet left. John quickly shoots Marquis, gaining his freedom at last. The High Table also agrees to rebuild Winston's empire while Caine goes off to find his girl. Sadly, John passes out on the steps, remembering his wife and seemingly dying.
Now, while Winston and Laurence Fishburne's Bowery King are at John's grave, that doesn't mean he's necessarily dead. They joke about if he's in heaven or hell, so this could be seen as definitive, but if director Chad Stahelski wants, he could reignite John as an assassin. The fourth and fifth films were supposed to shoot back-to-back, but that got scrapped as Stahelski felt it'd have exhausted the production.
But rather than say it's concluded, Stahelski deemed John Wick as resting for now. Of course, critical and financial reception will play a part in the future, but there's already an easy resurrection built in. John's isn't shown, so he could have been alive, with the grave being a decoy. John survives car crashes, blades, falls from high distances and such, so he's tough to put down. And as for why the grave could be fake, John knows that if The High Table wants, the council could call him back for duty.
It happened to Caine, so John may simply want to go off-grid so no one — friend or foe — can ever track him. It'd be his way of finally gaining peace from the assassin's life so he could simmer with Helen's memory. Of course, should Stahelski and Reeves decide it's over, the King has John's dog while Winston is resuming New York operations via the old code, hoping not to make mistakes of old. So, John's violent legacy will be remembered even if he remains dead.
See how John's fate in John Wick: Chapter 4, now in theaters.
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