John Wick 4 Release Date Officially Delayed To May 2022

John Wick 4’s release date is officially delayed to May 2022, with the project being impacted by the ongoing coronavirus shutdown.

John Wick 4 is officially delayed to May 2022. The highly-anticipated action sequel was originally scheduled to premiere in May 2021, coincidentally the same day as another massive Keanu Reeves followup, The Matrix 4. However, that was well before the coronavirus pandemic forced all of Hollywood to shut down, pushing back several release dates and delaying a plethora of productions. The Matrix 4, which was only four weeks into filming, is one of the many projects affected, pausing principal photography in mid-March.

Though the entertainment industry appears to be banking on late summer/early fall for when it will be safe to resume business operations, there are no guarantee cameras will be able to roll then. And since The Matrix 4 still has a majority of principal photography left, the expectation for a while has been John Wick 4 would not be able to meet that May 2021 release date. Just yesterday, John Wick 4 director Chad Stahelski admitted a delay was likely, and now it’s official.

Lionsgate announced John Wick 4 has been delayed to May 27, 2022, over a year after it was supposed to come out. The delay means the film will still be a key summer release for Lionsgate, illustrating their confidence in the project.

This news shouldn’t come as any surprise by now. Reeves has to finish shooting The Matrix 4 before jumping to John Wick 4, and as stated earlier, it’s impossible to predict when that will happen. There’s been talk of The Matrix 4’s release date being pushed back, so it was virtually impossible John Wick 4 would be ready for next May. Even if The Matrix 4 can start back up in the fall, filming would likely run through the end of 2020. In the best-case scenario, John Wick 4 will be in production come May 2021. Pushing back the movie’s release date makes a great deal of sense, allowing the creative team the necessary time to put the film together. Audiences have high expectations for John Wick 4 (this is no longer a sleeper property catching people by surprise), and it would be a shame if the fourth installment was rushed for the sake of meeting a set date.

In its new window, John Wick 4 will go up against the Dungeons and Dragons movie and open one week before WB’s The Flash film. Barring any more changes, it’s going to be facing some high-profile competition at the box office (Black Panther 2 will be a few weeks old, and Pixar has a new movie scheduled for June 2022), but John Wick 4 should still do very well for itself commercially. Thanks to its R-rating, the franchise targets a different demographic than the typical summer fare, allowing it to stand out and draw in large crowds. John Wick: Chapter 3 was a smash even as it dealt with films like Aladdin, so there’s no reason to doubt John Wick 4 won’t be a hit.

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