One Of The Best John Wick Characters Is Getting A Spin-Off – With A Very Appropriate Director

When you want to add a sense of legitimacy and an unrivaled cool factor into your action franchise, you cast Donnie Yen. If you want to take full advantage of the legendary Hong Kong action star's talents, well, you hire him as the director of your action franchise. Leave it to the "John Wick" property to potentially bring together the best of both worlds for its upcoming spinoff, centered on Yen's ultra-cool, scene-stealing assassin Caine from "John Wick: Chapter 4."

That easily takes the title for the most exciting news of the day, courtesy of Collider. In a recent interview with the outlet, Yen was promoting his work as both director and lead of his newest film "The Prosecutor," which is set to arrive in select theaters later this month. But, naturally, the topic of "John Wick" came up. Yen went ahead and dropped quite the bombshell on interviewer Steve Weintraub, who revealed he heard directly from "John Wick" director Chad Stahelski that there were discussions to put Yen in the director's chair. So what did the actor have to say? As he explained:

"It is true. I think both the fans, as well as the studio, want this to happen, and we'll see [...] I can only tell you that much. But yes, we are talking, and we are talking intimately. We'll see what happens."

For those who might not remember, the blind assassin Caine started the film as an antagonist on a reluctant mission to deliver Wick's head on a platter ... only to end it as an ally, completing one of the coolest arcs of any character in the entire franchise. A post-credits scene, featuring Caine and the vengeance-seeking killer Akira (played by pop sensation Rina Sawayama), seemed to tee up a potential standalone movie. Now, we've received our most significant update yet — and one that almost singlehandedly makes the project feel even more like a must-watch event.

While we wait to see whether a fifth "John Wick" movie remains in the cards or not (as of the last update, it appeared to be vaguely "in development," though there has been little movement on it since), fans can at least look forward to one other highly-anticipated film possibly turning into a reality. If these talks continue to progress and result in an actual deal, well, it's safe to say that we could be in for the most exciting installment of the franchise yet. There was already a prequel streaming series centered on Ian McShane's enigmatic hotel manager Winston Scott (I reviewed "The Continental" for /Film and it was very, uh, not good) and there's also another spinoff set to arrive later this year in the form of Ana de Armas' "From the World of John Wick: Ballerina." But both of those pale in comparison to a Yen-starring, Yen-directed movie about Caine, if you ask me.

The fact that there's any excitement at all surrounding this mysterious spinoff, of course, speaks to how much effort Donnie Yen put into the character of Caine and how warmly he was received by audiences upon the release of "Chapter 4." In the Collider interview, Yen went on to describe how he's well aware of the pressures of adding to something as beloved as the "John Wick" movies and has no intentions of letting anyone down:

"[...] I hold responsibility as well as a pressure that I don't want to ruin the franchise. I try to do my best to bring something fresh to the franchise itself. I don't want to bring down the expectations for the fans. I try to do my best, like always."

Fans itching to get a sense of Yen's directing prowess have their fair share of Chinese-language films to check out from the late 1990s and early 2000s, but one title to keep an eye on would be the upcoming movie "The Prosecutor," which Yen contends "really represents what kind of director I am." That film hits theaters in limited release on January 10, 2025. Stay tuned to /Film for more updates!