Production on John Wick: Chapter 4 may have kicked off ten days ago, but Lance Reddick has only just been officially added to the cast, reprising his role as Charon. He joins Keanu Reeves’ title hero and Ian McShane’s Winston as the only three names to have appeared in all four installments to date, with the veteran character actor becoming a firm fan favorite as the dignified concierge of New York City’s Continental Hotel.
Of course, the third act of Parabellum showed that Charon was capable of much more than looking after Wick’s dog and delivering wry exposition, getting his hands plenty dirty in the climactic shootout. There’s no word on how he’ll factor into the plot, but his loyalties may be torn after Winston left Reeves’ sharp-suited assassin for dead by shooting him multiple times and then watching him fall off a building.
As has been made perfectly clear, John Wick does not respond well to being threatened or double-crossed, but it could also turn out to be some sort of grand masterplan concocted by the two longtime associates. Shooting is set to touch down in Greece, Germany, France and Japan before circling back around to NYC, so a globetrotting rampage of revenge is assuredly on the cards.
In typical fashion, John Wick: Chapter 4 balances the esteemed gravitas of Reddick, McShane and Laurence Fishburne with rising stars Bill Skarsgård, Shamier Anderson and Rina Sawayama, in addition to the requisite martial arts badassery provided by Scott Adkins, Hiroyuki Sanada and Donnie Yen, all anchored by another masterclass in hand-to-hand combat and gunplay by Reeves, with the fourth outing hitting cinemas in May of next year, twelve months behind schedule.