Of all the movie franchises that have spawned in the last few years, none have delivered the same level of high-quality action as John Wick. The John Wick franchise first launched with a standalone film starring Keanu Reeves in 2014, but there was no way to predict that it was going to become what it is 12 years later. The first John Wick movie almost didn’t make it to the big screen — it wasn’t until Eva Longoria stepped in at the final hour and gave it the last bit of funding it needed to complete production, and the rest is history. John Wick returned three years later with a sequel, and two more followed in 2019 and 2023. While John Wick: Chapter 4 played like a natural ending for the titular assassin, Lionsgate has since confirmed that a fifth movie starring Reeves and directed by Chad Stahelski is in development.
The first John Wick spin-off debuted last year, but despite Reeves returning in a larger role than fans expected, Ballerina woefully underperformed at the box office. The film grossed $140 million against a $90 million budget, leaving it nearly $50 million short of its break-even point. It has since redeemed itself on streaming, though, where it can be viewed by all Starz subscribers. There is another John Wick spin-off confirmed to be coming down the line, one centered around Donnie Yen’s Caine, who debuted in John Wick: Chapter 4. In addition to starring, Yen has been tapped to direct his John Wick film, and he confirmed over the weekend that his spin-off is now in production. The first teaser for Caine has also been shared on X, formerly Twitter.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
What Else Do We Know About Donnie Yen’s John Wick Movie?
Plot details about the next John Wick spin-off are being kept under wraps for now, and the only two cast members confirmed to star as Yen as Caine and Rina Sawayama as Akira. Akira is the daughter of Hiroyuki Sanada’s Shimazu, who was one of the standouts in John Wick: Chapter 4. Robert Askins, Michael McGrale, and Mattson Tomlin wrote the script for the Caine movie — Tomlin also penned the screenplay for the highly anticipated Batman sequel starring Robert Pattinson that’s set to begin production soon. It has been confirmed that Keanu Reeves will not have a role in the Caine movie, and while Stahelski isn’t directing, he is involved as a producer.
Stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of Donnie Yen’s John Wick movie in production at Lionsgate.
