John Wick 5 in the works

'John Wick 5' has been confirmed by Lionsgate.

The movie is to be shot back-to-back with the fourth chapter of the hitman film franchise, which features Keanu Reeves as the titular character, when the Hollywood actor is available "early next year".

Speaking during an earnings call, Lionsgate CEO John Feltheimer said: "We're also busy preparing scripts for the next two instalments of our 'John Wick' action franchise, with 'John Wick 4' slated to hit theatres Memorial Day weekend 2022.

"We hope to shoot both 'John Wick 4' and 5 back to back when Keanu becomes available early next year."

'John Wick: Chapter 4' was due to drop in May 2021, but the movie was pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic, and it will now be released on May 27, 2022.

One positive is that the motion picture no longer clashes with 'The Matrix 4', which Reeves needs to complete on before returning to shoot the fourth 'John Wick'.

'John Wick: Chapter 4' director Chad Stahelski recently revealed the movie will incorporate unused action sequences from the third film in the series, because he "didn't have room" for them in 'John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum'.

He said: "There's a couple things. We had a couple of overlapping thematics, and I stripped it down to the bare essentials.

"And there were two action sequences that we had really kind of conceived, but we just didn't have room for them. So, we pulled them from the movie.

"And I'd like to think that 90 percent of what I pulled, there's a place in 'John Wick 4' that I can definitely reinsert them."