The John Wick franchise has surpassed the box office milestone of $1 billion. The latest iteration, John Wick: Chapter 4, became the highest-grossing film in the movie series after netting over $430 million worldwide.
The franchise began with Keanu Reeves in the role of the eponymous former hitman in 2014 and has gone from strength to strength with each subsequent movie generating more at the box office than previous films.
The neo-noir genre
The renaissance of the noir genre can be seen in its appearance in other areas of the entertainment industry. The Hitman movie series, which starred Timothy Olyphant and, later, Rupert Friend as the lonely assassin Agent 47 has appeared in multiple types of media including two novels. Modern interpretations of the genre can also be found in the iGaming industry, where players can play slots online at Betfair Casino which borrows from the genre with titles such as Spy Affairs, Murder Mystery, and, in particular, Cash Noire which features dark aesthetics, a femme fatale and its very own private investigator. The genre lends itself to wide interpretations in a variety of entertainment contexts with the conventions of the genre immediately identifiable.
The John Wick franchise successfully taps into the neo-noir movie genre exemplified by one of the early versions of the morally dubious loner: Sam Spade, the private investigator played by Humphrey Bogart in the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon. While film noir emerged in the 1930s and 1940s, the genre has inspired a range of directors in the modern era with their own interpretation of neo-noir including David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
Spinoffs and a new John Wick movie
The John Wick franchise is also striving to reinvent itself with two new spinoffs including the TV series The Continental: From the World of John Wick, which is set to premiere in September 2023, plus a spinoff movie entitled Ballerina featuring Ana De Armas slated for release in the US in June 2024. Now fans can also look forward to John Wick: Chapter 5 after the film executive Joe Drake confirmed that Lionsgate is working on the next film installment of the franchise. Drake was keen to emphasize the improvement inherent in each movie, praising “the incredible work of Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves, alongside Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee, who have made it their mission to outdo themselves with each successive film in this franchise.”
Reeves has taken the reticence of the neo-noir protagonist to a whole new level when he revealed that he cut the dialogue of his character in the latest movie John Wick: Chapter 4 to 380 words in just under three hours, so fans should not be fooled by the official trailer where John Wick says a tenth of the words that appear in the entire film.
With its modern take on the noir genre, John Wick is set to be around for some years to come, just don’t expect too much dialogue, it wouldn’t be right for a neo-noir anti-hero.
Image Credit: Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash