Following the success of John Wick, two sequels followed to overwhelming success and led to the studio announcing that John Wick: Chapter 4 and John Wick: Chapter 5 were in the works. However, when these new John Wick films arrive, they will do so without one of the series writers.
Derek Kolstad wrote the first two John Wick films and was joined by Shay Hatten, Chris Collins, and Marc Abrams on the third, but the writer/creator recently spoke with Collider to reveal that he’s
“actually not involved in four and five.”
“At a certain stage of the studio will tell you, your creation is graduated, and you wish it well. I’m still close with Chad, still close with Dave, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m excited to see.”
According to Kolstad, it wasn’t his choice to walk away from the franchise.
No, it wasn’t my decision. When you think of the contractually of these things, the third one I shared the credit with any number of people, they didn’t have to come back to me, and so they didn’t. And so you look at that and you could be hurt, and I would say if I was 20 years ago I would have been, but seeing what the industry is and how things go, I just believe that you bless everything and hope it all the best, and to the players involved who are doing other things elsewhere. And yeah, it’s personal, so I’m never going to talk shit about John Wick. I want this thing to survive and thrive.
For a franchise that has worked on every level, this is a huge loss.
