John Wick Anime And TV Show Officially In The Works, Teases Director
Stahelski expressed his love for anime and mentioned that the medium could tell these stories better than what he and his team have done so far.
John Wick film director Chad Stahelski, while talking about “The Continental,” spin-off in his interview on The Discourse podcast, on Nov 9, 2023, teases not only a brand new live-action TV show but a John Wick anime project is also in the works!
“I love Japanese anime so much” – Chad Stahelski
According to The Playlist, the filmmaker hasn’t specified if the anime is meant to be a feature film or an ongoing series, but The Playlist speculated that the latter was more likely.
After briefly talking about the new TV series, Stahelski expressed his love for anime and mentioned that the medium of anime could tell these stories better than what he and his team have achieved so far.
“So we’re really looking forward to that; we’re really excited about it because we’re doing that and a Japanese anime because I love Japanese anime so much. So to create all the cool stories that anime could achieve better than we could and the TV show to expand our world, we’ll still get our fix, you know what I mean? And we’ll still have all the fun.”
“Lionsgate is having us develop the ‘John Wick’ TV show, so we thought we could explore The High Table in that a little bit,” – Chad Stahelski
According to Stahelski, the new live-action TV show will be distinct from The Continental spin-off, in which he served as executive producer but not as director.
The upcoming TV Series, he said, will focus on the High Table, the mafia’s top command that John Wick crossed paths with and went on a killing rampage to avoid.
The director states the audience hasn’t met the High Table yet and that would be something fun to see but also countered with the idea that you must be careful with revealing too much as it could fall into cliches he and his team dislike.
“An actual table with the stereotypes tropes of evil from different ethnicities from all over the world. We’re never going to show the whole High Table; we’ll show the representatives, but we’ll always keep some of that [mystery].”
“And now that we’ve got… Lionsgate is having us develop the ‘John Wick’ TV show, so we thought we could explore The High Table in that a little bit,”
He also stated that he plans to combine world-building and action, which are normally presented separately, into one and present them in the upcoming anime project and live-action TV series.
“Cause I think, for TV especially, world-building and action, those two have stayed pretty separate. But to try and combine them and give fans [both]? Look, I love the [TV] slow-burn too, but after six episodes, I would like something to happen in my TV shows, you know? So, to try and bring that to TV, what we do with features would be really exciting,”
Derek Kolstad created the American neo-noir action thriller media franchise known as John Wick, which centers on John Wick, a former hitman who finds himself drawn back into the criminal underworld he had previously left.
The franchise began with the release of John Wick in 2014, followed by three sequels: Chapter 2 in 2017, Chapter 3 – Parabellum in 2019, and Chapter 4 in 2023. The franchise has various spin-offs in development, beginning with the limited series The Continental: From the World of John Wick debuting in 2023, and the film Ballerina releasing in 2024.
Lionsgate describes the overall plot of the movie series as follows:
A retired hitman is forced back into the underground world of assasins when he embarks on a merciless rampage to hunt down his adverseries. With the skill and ruthlessness that made him an underground legend, John Wick fights to overcome the world’s top hit men and women in a stylish tale of revenge and redemption.
Source: The Playlist
