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John Wick Anime Planned as Prequel Feature Film

In an interview that The Hollywood Reporter entertainment news source posted on Tuesday, John Wick franchise co-creator and director Chad Stahelski revealed that the franchise's planned anime will be a prequel feature film. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it will show "at least some" of the "impossible task" that allowed the title character to retire prior to the story of the first live-action film.

Stahelski directed all four live-action John Wick films from 2014 until 2023. He also produced next year's From the World of John Wick: Ballerina spinoff film, although he was not directly involved in last year's The Continental: From the World of John Wick spinoff series. He is designing the action sequences for Lazarus, Shinichiro Watanabe and MAPPA's science-fiction action anime for Adult Swim. Before directing films, Stahelski was a stunt performer on the live-action Fist of the North Star film and the supervising stunt coordinator on the live-action Speed Racer film.

Variety reported in 2020 that Derek Kolstad, the writer of the first three John Wick films, is writing and producing a Splinter Cell "anime series" for Netflix and Ubisoft. Deadline reported that he is also developing a live-action film of Kouta Hirano's Hellsing manga with Amazon Studios, and that he wrote a script for a live-action film of Sega's Streets of Rage game. John Wick star Keanu Reeves wrote the BRZRKR comic series which Production I.G is adapting into an anime series for Netflix.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter (Brian Davids)