Having the filmmaker behind the John Wick movies tackle Blade and Star Wars sounds amazing, but we have our doubts about those projects ever happening.
Chad Stahelski, the main man behind the four John Wick movies released so far (only the first one was co-directed alongside David Leitch), has signed on to direct a ridiculous amount of movie and TV projects in recent years, but that isn’t stopping him from letting Hollywood executives know about his big IP interests.
During a lengthy chat with Josh Horowitz about John Wick: Chapter 4 and his career and wants, the subject of working on big franchises and trying to cross off items on his personal wishlist came up. Unsurprisingly, he’d like to have a shot at making at least one Marvel and one Star Wars movie. Worth pointing out: he already did some second-unit work on Captain America: Civil War.
That section of the video starts around the 18:45 mark, but we highly recommend watching the whole thing if you enjoy the John Wick movies and action filmmaking. Regarding Blade, here’s what he had to say: “I’d take a swing at Blade in a second… I’ve worked for Marvel a bunch, and they’ve been very very good to me… They have their thing going, and I think they’ve got the right people involved in Blade now.”
He went on to mention he’d still be down to helm future Blade installments, but for now, that train has passed, and he’s not wrong about good people being involved in the current iteration of the Mahershala Ali-led reboot. However, we doubt the upcoming movie will be able to match the slickness of the John Wick movies if they’re aiming for a similar tone and vibe.
Fast-forward to 23:40 and we have Stahelski openly declaring he’s got “a couple takes for Star Wars” too. It sounds like official talks never happened, but it’s encouraging to hear he’d be willing to step into a much more family-friendly sandbox and maybe try to make something else. Looking at how Star Wars is currently expanding and exploring different corners and eras of the massive Star Wars universe, there’s definitely space for a Stahelski-captained action movie somewhere. However, we mustn’t forget about all the cool-sounding Star Wars projects that have been binned over the years.
For now, it’s sounding like the filmmaker’s next two big-screen features will be the Highlander reboot (starring Henry Cavill) and PlayStation Productions’ Ghost of Tsushima adaptation.