Skip to main content

Common will play the villain in the John Wick sequel

common the rapper
Last year’s John Wick was one of 2014’s surprise hits, with Keanu Reeves’ titular hitman winning over critics and audiences alike with a fast-paced, action-packed revenge story that earned more than $78 million worldwide and prompted the studio to green-light a sequel. This week, we learned a bit more about the shape that sequel will take with the first piece of casting news to come out of the upcoming project.

Oscar-winning musician and actor Common will reportedly play the primary villain in the sequel to John Wick, facing off against Reeves’ returning character in the film.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Common will play the head of security for a female crime lord. Reeves and Common are the only confirmed cast members for the film at this point.

Along with Reeves reprising the title role, the film will also bring back director Chad Stahelski, who co-directed the original film with David Leitch but will now go solo behind the camera for the sequel. John Wick screenwriter Derek Kolstad will also script the sequel.

The first, official synopsis for the film kept things brief as far as details go:

“In the follow up to last year’s adrenaline-fueled revenge and redemption thriller, legendary hit man John Wick is back,” reads the initial description of the film.

The original film cast Reeves as a retired hitman who finds himself back in the game after the naive son of a gangster steals his prized car and kills his dog — a final gift from his deceased wife. The supporting cast included Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Dean Winters, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, and Willem Dafoe.

In addition to roles in the 2008 action film Wanted and 2006’s Smokin’ Aces, Common took home an Academy Award for his musical contributions to Selma, Ava DuVernay‘s Oscar-nominated 2014 film that chronicled Martin Luther King’s civil-rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965. Common will also appear in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie.

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Is there going to be a John Wick: Chapter 5? Here’s what we want to see happen
John looks at Akira in John Wick: Chapter 4.

Now that John Wick: Chapter 4 has premiered in theaters, audiences have been left wondering what's next for the iconic action movie franchise. This fourth film has established the perfect conclusion for John Wick's story, but a fifth John Wick movie received the green light all the way back in 2020.

Will it happen? Who knows, but with all the new characters, superb action scenes, and complex world-building in Chapter 4, it would be a crime not to make more movies in the Wick universe. Should John Wick: Chapter 5 come to fruition, here are the five things I want to see happen in the movie.

Read more
John Wick: Chapter 4’s ending, explained
Two men stand next to each other and walk in John Wick Chapter 4.

The wait for the next chapter is over. It's been a long journey for everyone's favorite puppy-avenging assassin. From defending his home from Russian gangsters in the first John Wick to engaging in a knife fight at an antique store in John Wick: Chapter 3 -- Parabellum, Keanu Reeves' now-iconic assassin has seen it all and lived to tell the tale ... so far.

But in John Wick: Chapter 4, Wick seems to have met his match in Bill Skarsgård's psychotic Marquis Vincent de Gramont, who uses all of the High Table's resources to kill John. After a long and bloody fight between Wick and the High Table's assassins at the Osaka Continental, which results in the death of his longtime friend, Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada), John arranges to duel Caine (Donnie Yen), a blind assassin blackmailed by the Marquis to do his bidding so his daughter will not be killed, at the Sacré-Cœur in Paris at sunrise. But first, Wick must deal with a bevy of bounty hunters, a mysterious friend/foe, a killer dog who likes to bite on a man's private parts, and a race against time.

Read more
The best kills in John Wick: Chapter 4, ranked
A man stands and points a gun in John Wick: Chapter 4.

oThe Baba Yaga has finally returned with the release of John Wick: Chapter 4. As expected, Keanu Reeves has delivered some bloody and spectacular kills throughout this three-hour, action-packed epic.

Over the years, viewers have seen John murder people with just about every weapon that comes to mind, but he and his fellow assassins went above and beyond when it came to dishing out creative kills in this fourth chapter. In a film filled with deaths, these kills are undoubtedly the best of the best.

Read more