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Keanu Reeves begins filming on John Wick 2, set photos prove he's back

”People keep asking if I’m back… Yeah, I’m thinking I’m back!”

Clarisse Loughrey
Tuesday 01 December 2015 12:03 EST
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Keanu Reeves has started production on John Wick 2.
Keanu Reeves has started production on John Wick 2. (David Lee; John Wick PPNY, Inc.)

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John Wick is right once more. He's definitely back, and Keanu Reeves is busy filming the sequel to one of the best action movies of recent memory (as well as everyone's favourite dog-based revenge flick). 

New set photos show Reeves again booted and suited, taking on a couple of thugs under the same garish neon lighting which made the first John Wick such a memorably stylish experience. Promising. So very promising. 
 


Chad Stahelski is directing this instalment solo while previous collaborator, David Leitch, is busy prepping on his Charlize Theron-starring action movie The Coldest City. It's no surprise a sequel, currently only titled John Wick 2,  landed distribution only 4 months after its UK release; that's considering the sleeper hit managed to rake in almost $80 million globally.

Reeves, of course, is back for more; alongside Bridget Moynahan, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, John Leguizamo, and Tom Sadowski in their reprised roles. Joining the cast are Peter Stormare and Ruby Rose in unannounced roles, with Common playing the head bodyguard to a female crime boss. The part set aside for Rose presumably?  

There's no definitive plot yet, but Reeves did spill his thoughts on the project to Collider, “I think we have a really good premise, and it’s an organic premise. It’s basically — to me there’s John Wick and then there’s John. You know, John is the married guy whose wife just died, and that five years of his life. Then there’s John Wick, who’s the mythical assassin. In this, John Wick’s past comes and infiltrates John’s life and John Wick, in a way, has to fight for John.”


He also briefly elaborated on how he plans to ensure John Wick 2's fight scenes live up to the first, “We’re gonna do the same kind of thing in the sense of — what are the guiding principles? So it’s longer takes, know where you are on the space, who’s doing what, action with consequence. And then going to other levels of what the gun-Fu was, which was Jujitsu and Judo mixed with weapons and different styles of weapon training." 

"So we’ve been opening up, I’ve been learning some other tools and different styles of that, and trying to develop some more techniques in terms of Judo and Jujitsu and bring those elements into the work. And then we have some other things that might be a little different…But it’s all organic. It’s not like all of a sudden John Wick has superpowers, it’s got to be connected to the character.”

John Wick 2 is set to hit cinemas in 2016. 

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