Keanu Reeves has to finish 'Matrix 4' before starting 'John Wick 4' causing year-long delay

UPDATE: Lionsgate has officially delayed John Wick 4 by a whole year. It is now slated for release on May 22, 2022.

ORIGINAL STORY: John Wick 3 director Chad Stahelski says shooting on The Matrix 4 will have to be finished before they can get cracking on John Wick 4.

Reeves is very much an actor in demand at the moment.

The John Wick trilogy has proven to be so popular that not only is a fourth film on the way, but a fourth installment to The Matrix franchise, which Reeves last starred in back in 2003, was in production when the coronavirus pandemic sent most of the world into quarantine.

Both John Wick 4 and The Matrix 4 were actually supposed to be released on the same day, too: May 21, 2021.

As the director of all three installments to the John Wick franchise, as well as the upcoming fourth film, who also worked as Reeves’ stunt double on The Matrix films, Stahelski is perfectly placed to provide an update on these action films.

And, it turns out, that both films aren’t coming out on the same day, especially since John Wick 4 is almost certainly going to have be delayed because of the quarantine, and the fact that Reeves still has a lot of The Matrix 4 left to shoot.

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“Between how much we want to expand the John Wick — let’s just call it a ‘franchise’, I guess — and the pandemic, I couldn’t tell you a release date for the next one,” Stahelski told Collider.

“I mean, Matrix was only four weeks in when this all happened. So, Keanu’s gotta go finish his commitment up on The Matrix, which is a big deal and which I think will probably take him until the end of the year. Then we have to go into our prep mode… Release dates, who knows right now.”