While the John Wick franchise seemed to end with John Wick Chapter 4, there was one primary reason this couldn’t be the end of the Keanu Reeves film series. Derek Kolstad created the John Wick franchise in 2014 and Chad Stahelski stepped into the director’s chair to helm the first movie. While Derek Kolstad left the John Wick franchise after the third movie, Stahelski kept it going through four installments before pᴀssing off the spinoff Ballerina to veteran action director Len Wiseman and new star Ana de Armas.

The fourth John Wick movie ended in what seemed like the last stand for the тιтular character. The movie ended with John Wick’s death, and that seemed to mark the end of the franchise. However, the movies carried on with the spinoff Ballerina and there is more coming. John Wick himself even returned to Ballerina, as that was a prequel movie. However, there is no way that Lionsgate will let John Wick stay ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, and Keanu Reeves coming back is for a very good reason. The franchise is worth too much to die.

Each Of The Main John Wick Movies Has Made More Money Than The Last

John Wick Gets More Popular With Each Movie

Sequels usually make less than the original movies in all but the biggest franchises. However, that isn’t what happened with John Wick. Instead, these movies got bigger and bigger as the series wore on, which is helpful since the budgets also skyrocketed as well. The first film had a lower budget of $30 million and an $86 million worldwide profit warranted a sequel. However, no one could have expected the next movies to just keep bringing in more and more money until John Wick surpᴀssed $1 billion after just four movies.

The second John Wick movie cost only slightly more than the first, and it ended up almost doubling what the first movie made at the box office. This had to really pump confidence into the studio and director Chad Stahelski. The studio paid $75 million for the third movie, which was more than the budget of the first two movies combined. The gamble paid off, with John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum making $326.6 million worldwide, which was also more than the first two movies combined at the box office.

Even when the budget skyrocketed to $100 million for John Wick: Chapter 4, the film’s box office jumped accordingly. The third movie’s box office totals proved that fans had bought into the series unconditionally. However, when the fourth movie ended up making $447.3 million at the box office, it was clear that this series wasn’t ending and there was no way that Keanu Reeves’ John Wick would stay ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. These were numbers for blockbusters, and John Wick finally achieved that status.

John Wick 4’s Box Office Means Keanu Reeves’ Return In John Wick 5 Is Inevitable

Keanu Reeves Was Always Going To Be Back As John Wick

When John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum made $326.6 million, the franchise knew it could take a chance with the fourth movie. Killing John Wick in the end was a choice that no one could have expected. It raised the stakes in an unexpected way and ensured that people were talking about John Wick. How could the franchise kill off its main character when viewers were still willing to pay to keep seeing him tear through ᴀssᴀssins in a way unlike any other action movie? This was never going to end the series.

By the time that the fourth movie finished its theatrical run, the John Wick franchise had made $1.032 billion in total worldwide revenue. This made it clear that there were going to be more movies with Reeves. There was likely no chance that they would leave him ᴅᴇᴀᴅ at the end of the film, not with the fanbase still willing to spend money to watch the action. The good news is that the fourth movie showed John sitting down to die, but didn’t actually show him dying. The movie smartly left his return open.

John Wick’s Box Office Run Is Matched By The Franchise’s Quality

The Movies Got Better & Maintained A High Standard.

There are two main reasons that the John Wick franchise kept making more money as it progressed. One is that Reeves has earned his spot as one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars and fans will see him in movies of this sort. However, if the movies didn’t improve as they went on, it wouldn’t have worked as well. Remember, Reeves has been in action movies before, and outside The Matrix, nothing was as big as John Wick. What happened was that the films got better and better.

The first movie was a great story, with John Wick tracking down the man who killed his dog and getting the ultimate revenge. However, the second movie opened up the mythology of the John Wick world, and the action got bigger and better. By the third and fourth movies, Stahelski kept pulling out more action scenes and ensured that the movies were as entertaining as they were violent, and this made sure the quality never dropped. The fourth movie had the best Rotten Tomatoes score of the franchise.

Ballerina Is Unlikely To Continue John Wick’s Box Office Streak, But That’s Okay

The Big Money Comes With John Wick As The Main Character

When most movies release sequels, there is a chance of diminishing returns. Each sequel makes less money than the ones that came before. That has recently become clear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where movies have had bigger and bigger returns, until recent years, when the latest releases made less money with the mostly standalone movies. After making billions at the box office, the MCU began struggling to sell movies like The Marvels and The Thunderbolts*.

That happened to John Wick with From the World of John Wick: Ballerina in 2025. That movie had John Wick in it, but it struggled at the box office during its opening weekend. Since its release on June 6, Ballerina has made $58.5 million worldwide, and it might not reach its break-even point with its $90 million budget plus marketing costs. However, that is okay. As the MCU showed with movies like ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine and Spider-Man: No Way Home, the money still comes in when the movies highlight beloved characters.

When John Wick 5 comes out, fans will be back because Keanu Reeves’ story is what matters most to them. No matter how good Ana de Armas did in Ballerina, the fans wanted to see more of John Wick, and not just as a side character. As John Wick Chapter 4 showed, Reeves still sells the franchise, and when he returns for the fifth movie in the main franchise, fans will likely return as well.

Source: The Numbers