Shock Alert: 'John Wick 4' and 'John Wick 5' will NOT be Written by Franchise Creator Derek Kolstad

Chad Stahelski co-directed the first John Wick film with David Leitch and then went on to solely direct the next two films. Keanu Reeves naturally became the face of the franchise and interestingly was the one who decided to change the name of the film to John Wick as it was originally 'Scorn.' But Derek Kolstad is the creator behind it all and the one who has written the script for every entry into the franchise thus far. Without him we wouldn't have the John Wick character(s), the badass Continental Hotel, the dope bulletproof suits, the gold coin currency that's a numeric mess, or the film franchise at all to put it plainly.

If the John Wick Franchise has been such a success (earning over half a billion dollars at the box office combined) for Lionsgate then why is Derek Kolstad not going to be involved with the writing of the 4th and 5th film? Apparently it wasn't his decision as it was decided by Lionsgate, Derek explains the situation in an interview with Collider as he says:

"At a certain stage of the studio will tell you, your creation is graduated, and you wish it well,” he then adds "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.”

The writer then expands on the situation in the interview with Collider by saying:

"When you think of the [contracts] 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.”

The franchise has been such a success that it has created two spin-offs that are currently in the works. One being a film called the Ballerina which will be directed by Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) that follows a female assassin getting her revenge for the murder of her family. The second spin-off is a tv series we've been hearing about for awhile now called The Continental that dives deeper into the origins of the characters living the sleek assassin world. Derek Kolstad provides some small updates on the on spin-offs in the interview with Collider as he says:

"They’re about to make some pretty large announcements in the next couple of weeks in regards to what’s going to happen there,” he then continues saying “[The show is] about how deep the world goes, and not just about assassins but everything that’s included. And a lot of the origin stories are some of the characters that you see in [John Wick].”

To me it sounds like him not being involved in the writing of the 4th and 5th film may just be some contract issue and hopefully Lionsgate is working on a new one for Derek so that he can continue building the franchise us action junkies can't enough of. For now, just keep checking in for updates as it sounds like there is a lot going on in the John Wick franchise whether it involves Derek Kosltad or not.

New first reported by Collider.