Keanu Reeves is set to return as John Wick in an animated prequel film that will explore the hitman’s past.
Lionsgate has officially greenlit the untitled animated feature, with Reeves closing a deal to reprise his signature role in the billion-dollar action franchise.
Set before the events of the first John Wick film, the story goes back to a time when John was still one of the most feared assassins in the criminal underworld. Having fallen in love with Helen, he wanted to leave that life behind and settle down with her. But getting out meant completing one final mission for the High Table, the powerful organisation that governs the underworld.
Known as the Impossible Task, the mission required John to kill all his rivals in a single night. Pulling it off would secure his freedom and allow him to marry Helen, a life he had been desperate to build away from the violence of his former profession.
The events of the new film will lead up to the life audiences first encountered in the 2014 original. By then, John has retired from killing and is living with Helen, who later dies from an illness.
Her final gift to him is a puppy named Daisy, intended to help him cope with her death.
When a group of gangsters break into his home, steal his car, and kill the dog, John returns to the world of assassins, setting off the chain of events that drives the four live-action films.
The film will be directed by Shannon Tindle, best known for Netflix’s Ultraman: Rising and the animated feature Kubo and the Two Strings. Ryan and Kaz Firpo, who co-wrote Marvel's Eternals, have written the screenplay.
Reeves will also produce the film, alongside Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee of Thunder Road and Chad Stahelski of 87Eleven Entertainment, all of whom have worked on the live-action John Wick films. Production company Point Grey is also joining the team, with Nathan Kahane serving as an executive producer, according to Deadline.
Lionsgate first announced the animated project at CinemaCon in April 2025, with Adam Fogelson, chair of its motion picture group, saying the Impossible Task was the story audiences most wanted to see.
“In both animation and the world of John Wick, the possibilities are endless,” Fogelson said at the time. “And there is no John Wick story fans are clamouring for more than the Impossible Task. Shannon’s take on that story is an incredible one, and we are beyond excited to see what John Wick can do in animation.”
The animated film is the latest in a growing list of projects set in the John Wick universe. The franchise has taken more than $1bn at the global box office across five films, including the Ana de Armas-led spin-off Ballerina, released in 2025.
A standalone film centred on Caine, the blind assassin played by Donnie Yen in John Wick: Chapter 4, is also in the works. Yen is directing the project, which was shot between April and July 2026, with Rina Sawayama returning as Shimazu Akira, his character’s daughter in the fourth film.
There is also a fifth live-action John Wick film in development, despite the apparent death of Reeves’s character at the end of Chapter 4. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, director Stahelski said he and writer Mike Finch were actively working on a story, saying: “We’ve got a pretty good story that I think is cool. Once we have a 50-page book, and if we’re feeling it, we’ll sit with Keanu and shape this thing.”
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