Keanu Reeves Has Locked In a Surprising New Way to Return as ‘John Wick’

When ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ wrapped in 2023, it left Winston and the Bowery King standing at a grave marked with Wick’s name. The movie earned $440 million at the global box office. A death scene that profitable was never going to stay permanent.

Lionsgate has spent the time since turning one assassin into an entire universe. With ‘John Wick 5,’ ‘Ballerina,’ ‘Caine,’ and more in the pipeline, the studio is building the franchise into a full-fledged cinematic world. Reeves’ live-action return was already on the books, but the studio had another card to play.

That card just landed. Variety reports that Reeves has officially closed a deal to return as John Wick in Lionsgate’s animated prequel movie about the legendary hitman. Lionsgate has greenlit the previously teased project, and Reeves will both produce it and lend his voice to the character.

The story goes back to the franchise’s most mythologized moment. It follows the “Impossible Task,” in which Wick eliminated all his rivals in a single night to gain his freedom from the High Table. Variety describes the film as recounting how Wick earned the right to be with the love of his life, Helen. Fans have heard about that night for a decade without ever seeing it.

Behind the camera, the film has a notable creative team. Shannon Tindle, known for ‘Ultraman: Rising,’ is directing for Lionsgate, and Vanessa Taylor, who wrote ‘The Shape of Water,’ is writing the script. That pairing suggests a project built around style as much as story.

Anyone expecting a softened, family-friendly spin should look elsewhere. Like the live-action films, the animated movie is set to deliver the highly stylized action fans expect and is aimed at more mature audiences. In other words, the gunplay and consequences are coming along for the ride.

The film first surfaced at CinemaCon in 2025. Adam Fogelson, chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, announced the animated project from the stage. At the time, the studio only said Reeves was expected to return, so this week’s deal marks the moment that expectation became official.

The producing roster is a familiar one. Reeves, Chad Stahelski, Basil Iwanyk, and Erica Lee are all producing the animated prequel, while 87Eleven Entertainment’s Alex Young and Jason Spitz are executive producing. That means the people who built the live-action series are still steering its next chapter.

Lionsgate has been confident about the franchise’s future from the start. Fogelson said that Reeves, Stahelski, Iwanyk, and Lee wouldn’t return unless they had something “truly phenomenal and fresh” to say, as he put it in comments reported by Variety. Whether an animated origin story can meet that bar is the question now hanging over the project.

The timing is also interesting given where the main series stands. ‘John Wick: Chapter 5’ is moving forward with Stahelski returning to direct, despite the character’s apparent death in the last film. The prequel gives Reeves a way to keep Wick alive on screen while the live-action story figures out its next move.

For fans, the appeal is simple. They get to watch the most talked-about night in Wick’s history play out with Reeves’ voice, a mature tone, and an animation team known for bold visuals. After years of hearing about the Impossible Task, the High Table’s most feared hitman is finally about to show how he pulled it off.