‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ Director Reveals Original Ending Showed Keanu Reeves Alive, but Test Audiences “Absolutely Preferred the Ambiguous Ending”

Despite everything he went through in John Wick: Chapter 4, it’s possible that Keanu Reeves‘ character could still be alive. Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Director Chad Stahelski revealed the ambiguous ending viewers saw in theaters wasn’t the only ending they filmed. While the theatrical ending showed Ian McShane and Laurence Fishburne visiting John’s grave, seemingly suggesting that he passed away, Stahelski said an alternate ending made it “very clear that he was still alive.”

“We had a different ending,” Stahelski told Empire magazine. “[The theatrical ending] was the ending Keanu and I wanted, but we shot a different ending. We shot an ending where you actually saw John Wick at the end of the movie. So it was very clear that he was still alive. The audiences we tested with absolutely preferred the ambiguous ending.”

That ambiguous ending does make it seem like a John Wick: Chapter 5 is surely on the horizon.

Stahelski went on to explain that he and Reeves agreed to revisit the franchise for Chapter 4 because they felt they hadn’t “stuck the landing” in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.

“We didn’t feel like we had done our best. We both felt like we could have ended the series better,” he said. “We didn’t feel like we stuck the landing, and that’s a shitty feeling. Because we love the character, we love working together, we love the world.”

Stahelski said they came to an agreement at the time that John had to die. “We got to come up with the coolest way to make the happen. We’ve got to make it all about, ‘You can only had a good death if you had a good life,'” he recalled. “That’s the first line we wrote on a napkin in Japan, three years out. We wrote the movie backwards off that one thing.”

After John Wick 4 hit theaters earlier this year, Reeves said he would be open to making another installment, especially if it means his character will finally get a happy ending.

“I don’t know, I guess I’m going to have to lean on ‘never say never,’” he told Entertainment Weekly. “I mean, I wouldn’t do a John Wick film without Chad Stahelski. We’d have to see what that looked like. For me, it feels really right that John Wick finds peace.”

Perhaps he’ll finally find peace after the fifth try. Regardless, fans can expect to see John Wick again in Ana de Armas‘ upcoming spinoff movie Ballerina.