Niemand im Kino bleibt mehr tot

Welcome to literally decades ago, Variety.

Comic book readers: First time?

Jeez r/titlegore, in the article that way?!?

I haven’t seen ballerina yet, but my understanding is it takes place before Wick dies.

Ever play yakuza??

Uncle Ben stays dead

John Wick 5 has me a bit confused because the original filmed ending of 4 did have him confirmed alive at the end and they changed it to him being dead because they felt it was a better story. Then Keanu has done multiple interviews where he said he physically can’t really do it anymore. Even in Ballerina where Chad Stahelski reshot most of the action and included Keanu his screen time is mostly not action related and the action he does do is very limited.

Even with all of that set aside…4 fully comes to terms with and accepts the end of John Wick the character. He has quite literally hit the end of the road in terms of narrative. He accomplished everything he wanted to and even acknowledges in-universe that he’s run out of things to exact vengeance for.

The only way I see it working is if this movie is a „Creed“ situation where a young assassin tracks him down and he is convinced to help out their cause. Ballerina does a good job of setting up Ana De Armas to be a competent lead of this kind of action franchise so if they’re going to literally resurrect John Wick it would be nice if she was the one to take over.

Sometimes dead is bettah.

Sequels aside, it used to be characters in films would die in these sacrificial acts that pulled you in to the story because they had real stakes. I don’t see that as much today and I wonder why that is? It didn’t even have to be the main character either.

I remember watching 28 Weeks Later and seeing Jeremy Renner’s heroic death and it floored me as young guy. I’m talking real stakes in films where anyone can die at any moment.

In the movie Alive, the captain of the team’s death in the middle of the movie still haunts me. He was pulling people together, you think he’s going to make it because he’s so strong and then he ends up dying in the most haunting way imaginable.

I then watched Bright with Will Smith and in the middle of the film, they kill his orc partner. I figured ok, maybe he’ll come back later in the movie—oh, wait no, there he is resurrected not five minutes later. I didn’t even have time to process his supposed death.

I’m not saying all movies do this but I’ve heard from some people that it is because modern audiences can’t take that much tension anymore? Or don’t like it? Is this true?

Isn’t anybody in this dad-gummed cemetery dead?

Dragon Balls. I blame them.

The Marvel fake death universe has been going forever. Hell even Star Trek TNG found multitudes of ways to bring back Denise Crosby.

Also, the example here is bad with Ballerina as

A. It takes place in the past, so it’s technically a prequel.

B. Also it was ambiguous at the end of John Wick 4 as to whether he was actually dead.