Keanu Reeves' John Wick 4 Has Added A Shawshank Redemption Alum

Clancy Brown as Byron Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption

It’s been a while since we last spent time with Keanu ReevesJohn Wick, but soon the assassin known to the criminal underworld as the Baba Yaga will be back on the big screen. John Wick: Chapter 4 is in the midst of principal photography, and the casting reveals aren’t done just yet. It’s been announced that The Shawshank Redemption actor Clancy Brown will be taking part in the action franchise’s next installment.

It wasn’t that long ago that Clancy Brown and Keanu Reeves both worked on The Spongebob Movie: Sponge on the Run, with the former reprising the role of Mr. Krabs and the latter as a tumbleweed spirit name Sage. Now they’ll be sharing screen time for the definitely-not-kid-friendly John Wick: Chapter 4. Here’s what director Chad Stahelski had to say about Brown coming aboard the movie in a statement to Deadline:

I have been a fan of Clancy Brown’s since I can remember. To have him be a part of this project is an honor. He will make a perfect addition to the World of John Wick!

Clancy Brown also slyly confirmed his involvement in John Wick: Chapter 4 with the below tweet, which includes the same picture the John Wick social media accounts used back in June to announce the start of shooting.

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No details have been provided yet on who Clancy Brown is playing in John Wick: Chapter 4, but anyone who’s familiar with him from playing Byron Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption, The Kurgan in Highlander, Lex Luthor in the DC Animated Universe, Surtur in Thor: Ragnarok or any number of other roles know the man plays a great villain. So it’s easy enough to imagine Brown bring cast as one of the baddies John Wick will cross with when the events of Chapter 4 roll around. On the other hand, maybe Chad Stahelski recruited Brown to play against type and will appear one of John’s allies who aid him during his battle with the High Table.

Either way, this is another top-notch casting for John Wick: Chapter 4, with Clancy Brown joining a lineup of new faces that includes Rina Sawayama, Donnie Yen, Shamier Anderson, Bill Skarsgård, Hiroyuki Sanada, Scott Adkins and Mark Zaror. We’ll also reunite with Ian McShane’s Winston and Lance Reddick’s Charon, both of whom have been part of the John Wick film series since the beginning, as well as Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King, who joined the fray in John Wick: Chapter 2. Along with Chapter 4, Brown will also appear as Kurt Caldwell in Dexter: New Blood, which premieres on Showtime November 7.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is on track to premiere in theaters on May 27, 2022, and feel free to keep track of other movies coming out next year with our 2022 release schedule. Along with John Wick: Chapter 5 being in development, this universe will expand with with the Ballerina spinoff and Starz’s The Continental limited series, the latter of which will follow Winston in the 1970s. Keep your eyes on CinemaBlend for more updates on all these projects.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.