Actor Keanu Reeves has been pretty good at establishing memorable character archetypes throughout his career. In his younger days he was one half of slacker time-travelling wannabe rock stars “Bill & Ted.” At the turn of the millennium he was hacker-turned-cyber-messiah figure Neo in the “Matrix” trilogy. Since 2014 he was better known as dreaded retired hit-man “John Wick.” In three films of that gritty action franchise from Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate, Reeves’ violent misadventures have captured audiences’ attention, thanks to the able writing of Derek Kolstad, who created the character. But as the studio makes plans for more movies, they are moving forward without Kolstad, as he reveals.

In a report from IndieWire, Derek Kolstad has intimated that he might not be writing the story of a possible fourth “John Wick” film. He shared as much during an interview for Universal Pictures’ upcoming action thriller “Nobody,” for which Kolstad is executive producer under director Ilya Naishuller. Kolstad noted that it was a decision of the “john Wick” creative team and the studio, and he had no say on it.

“No, it wasn’t my decision,” Notes Kolstad. “At a certain stage the studio will tell you, your creation is graduated, and you wish it well. I’m still close with (franchise director) Chad (Stahelski)…and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m excited to see.”

Derek Kolstad was solo writer for the original “John Wick” and its 2017 sequel “John Wick: Chapter 2.” Come “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” in 2019 Kolstad was part of a writing posse with Marc Abrams, Chris Collins and Shay Hatten. For its barebones narrative of Belarus-born assassin Jardani Jovonovich aka John Wick just trying to stay alive in the underground world of hit-men and killers, the franchise has not only two direct film sequels in planning but also a spinoff movie and prequel series.

Outside of “John Wick,” Kolstad is also a writer and executive producer on “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” another superhero streaming series part of the MCU Phase 4, which premiered March 19 on Disney+.

Image courtesy of Screen Rant