John Wick 4: Everything you need to know (2024)

John Wick 4 – officially known as John Wick: Chapter 4 – is less than a month away, and Keanu Reeves's return as the hitman is set to be an epic one.

In February 2023, it was confirmed that the fourth movie in the hit action franchise clocks in at a lengthy 169 minutes. That's two hours and 49 minutes, which is a good 30 minutes longer than any previous outing to date.

Originally we thought that we were definitely getting two more John Wick movies, with 4 and 5 being filmed back t0 back. However, that is no longer the case and Reeves has said that whether we get a fifth movie depends on how Chapter 4 is received.

So if you want to see even more of the deadly hitman with a penchant for dogs, then don't miss John Wick: Chapter 4. Here's everything you need to know about the return of John Wick.

John Wick 4 release date: When is John Wick Chapter 4 out?

The fourth movie was originally set for release on May 21, 2021, before being delayed to May 27, 2022 and then delayed once again to its current date of March 24.

With that release date only weeks away, we hope that's a sign that there will be no further delays.

Filming took place from June to October 2021, and a wrap gift seemed to suggest that the subtitle of the fourth movie would be Hagakure, a reference to a Japanese text from the 1700s, but officially, the movie doesn't have a subtitle.

As mentioned above, it was thought that the fifth movie would film back-to-back with the fourth movie, but that plan was changed as a result of delays to the start of production for the fourth movie.

We don't yet know if John Wick 5 will happen, but it could be that the movie is confirmed if the fourth movie does well on opening weekend.

John Wick 4 trailer: Watch the John Wick Chapter 4 trailers here!

The first teaser trailer for John Wick 4 was released in July 2022, and while it was light on plot, it did show the scale of the challenge facing John Wick in the movie.

Watch it below:

We've since had a couple of new trailers in November 2022 and February 2023, with the previous trailer giving us our first look at Rina Sawayama's mysterious character Akira who may (or may not) be on John Wick's side.

If you missed it above, you can watch that trailer again below:

John Wick 4 cast: Who's back for John Wick Chapter 4?

Keanu Reeves is, of course, back as John Wick as a John Wick movie without him would be like a Mission: Impossible movie without Tom Cruise.

He'll be reunited with Laurence Fishburne as the Bowery King, Lance Reddick as Continental Hotel concierge Charon and Ian McShane as Continental owner Winston, who might (or might not) have tried to kill John at the end of the third movie.

It's not yet clear if the new movie has brought back Jason Mantzoukas as the Tick Tock Man, one of the Bowery King's assassins, or Halle Berry's Sofia as she's now repaid the marker with Wick and has got her own hotel to run.

We reckon we'll see the High Table again, so that could mean returns for Asia Kate Dillon's Adjudicator, Saïd Taghmaoui as the Elder and Anjelica Huston as the Director, one of the members of the High Table.

None of them have been confirmed as of yet though.

Huston is reprising her role as the Director in spin-off movie Ballerina, which will also bring back the likes of McShane's Winston and Reddick's Charon, so we wouldn't be surprised to see a crossover in the fourth movie.

There are plenty of newcomers in the fourth movie already though, including Bill Skarsgård, Donnie Yen, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Clancy Brown, Rina Sawayama and Scott Adkins.

Skarsgård is playing the Marquis de Gramont and appears to be the main antagonist of the new movie. "The Marquis is a young man of unknown origin who has quickly climbed the ladder within the High Table doing god knows what," he explained.

"I always saw him as someone from the gutter that now savors the glittery suits he’s wearing. He functions as the new sheriff set out to rid the world of John Wick once and for all."

Brown previously teased that his character might be involved with the High Table. "I will say it's more of the Table revealed. More of the High Table, the kind of intricacies of that authority structure is revealed," he explained.

"And I am in a couple of scenes that you could argue are action scenes, I suppose. A lot of my scenes are with Bill Skarsgård, which was a lot of fun."

John Wick 4 plot: What's John Wick Chapter 4 about?

Along with the first teaser, Lionsgate released the official synopsis for John Wick 4 which will see John Wick take on "his most lethal adversaries yet".

"With the price on his head ever increasing, Wick takes his fight against the High Table global as he seeks out the most powerful players in the underworld, from New York to Paris to Osaka to Berlin," it reads.

That's not a surprise to anybody who's seen the third movie as while he was in exile, Wick is given the choice to either kill the Continental owner Winston or die. Wick chooses to return to the Continental, but never plans to kill Winston.

Obviously the High Table (a council of crime lords that control everything) aren't too pleased with this and the Adjudicator declares the Continental 'deconsecrated', meaning business can take place on the hotel's grounds.

So a bunch of High Table assassins, including Zero, try to take down Wick, Winston and Continental concierge Charon, and it won't be a surprise to say they don't succeed.

The Adjudicator calls a truce and promises to restore the Continental to its former position, but only if Winston kills Wick. Unlike Wick, Winston shows no mercy and shoots Wick several times, causing him to fall off the roof of the hotel.

In a ridiculous twist that only works in the world of John Wick, he survives and is taken to the Bowery King. Somehow he's still alive too despite the High Table punishing him for helping Wick in the second movie by having Zero cut him seven times (the Bowery King gave Wick seven bullets).

The movie ends with the Bowery King promising revenge on the High Table and recruiting Wick to his cause.

It seems that the third movie's subtitle Parabellum (the name of the most common kind of bullet, and Latin for, loosely, "prepare for war") was referring to this war that will take place in the fourth movie.

Aside from how the third movie sets up the war between Wick and the High Table, we don't yet know too much about what will happen in the fourth movie.

However, we shouldn't be expecting a happy ending to the overall saga. Speaking to IndieWire in May 2019, Stahelski said: "John may survive all this sh*t, but at the end of it, there's no happy ending. He's got nowhere to go."

John Wick: Chapter 4 is released in cinemas on March 24.