This story contains MAJOR spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4.

Between all four John Wick films, Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stakelski met at the Imperium Hotel in Japan and drank whisky together until they figured out the next path for their titular hero. Whether or not John Wick lived or died, fought Donnie Yen and Hiroyuki Sanada, or went on an unbelievable car chase throughout the Arc de Triomphe in Paris? It was all decided by whatever ideas "a few glasses of Yamazaki or Hibiki [whisky]" got flowing, Stahelski told Collider. "Next thing you know, we’re like, ‘I didn’t know we could do this.’ And that’s how we start writing them.”

Despite Chapter 4 spelling the end for our good boy Jonathan Wick at the end of the latest installment in the action franchise, a good glass of aged scotch could always give the pair another brainstorm. "We're going to give John Wick a rest," Stahelski reiterated in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter—but a rest doesn't necessarily mean forever. "Keanu and I will take the long trip to Tokyo, we'll sit in the Imperial Hotel Scotch Bar and go, 'What do you think?' We'll have a couple 20-year-old whiskies and write some ideas on napkins. If those ideas stick, maybe we'll make a movie."

For Reeves, he agrees that while Chapter 4 is a fitting end for his character, he would "lean on never say never" as long as Stahelski was still directing. "For me, it feels really right that John Wick finds peace," he told Entertainment Weekly. John Wick: Chapter 4 gives him that end, and then some. Many of the new characters who are introduced in the latest film—Akira (Rina Sawayama), Caine (Donnie Yen), Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson), and Katia (Natalia Tena)— could star in their own spinoff projects or continue their stories in John Wick 5. Ana de Armas is already set to star in a spinoff film titled Ballerina, while a prequel series on The Continental assassin hotel has been announced by Peacock.

But don't count out Wick just yet. "What I will say is that we never actually see him dying," co-writer Michael Finch revealed in an interview with Polygon. “We see a [grave] plot. What happened in between is up for interpretation.” It's possible that Wick is still alive, but it's safer for everyone involved if he's believed to be dead. Here at Esquire, we don't want to close the door on John Wick permanently—not when Chapter 4 is looking to be the biggest opening-weekend gross for any John Wick film yet. After all, there's always more baddies to kill.

You Might Also Like

• Kid Cudi Is All Right

• 16 Best Shoe Organizers For Storing and Displaying Your Kicks