Collider: I need to ask you about the movie that I’m incredibly excited about, which is the sequel to John Wick, I’ve said again and again how much I loved that fucking movie.

KEANU REEVES: Oh, great. Yeah.

I am anxious and when the CEO of Lionsgate announced that it could be a franchise or a sequel I was very happy, because sometimes Hollywood makes shitty sequels.

REEVES: No, there’s a great pressure. Chad Stahelski, the director, spoke about how there’s one challenge of the first film, but then the second one it’s like the second record, it’s like the “What do you do now?” So yeah, there’s a big concern and we don’t want it to fucking suck. I think we have a really good premise, and it’s an organic premise. It’s basically — to me there’s John Wick and then there’s John. John is the married guy whose wife just died, and that five years of his life. Then there’s John Wick, who’s the mythical assassin. In this, John Wick’s past comes and infiltrates John’s life and John Wick, in a way, has to fight for John.

That’s interesting, because I was gonna say that one of the things that resonates with everyone who has seen the movie is: you don’t fuck with the dog. There’s that emotional connection where everyone is like, “Just kill them all”, based on that. So I guess what I’m saying is, that has a strong emotional resonance, so is there a pressure to top that emotional hit, if you will?

REEVES: I don’t know if it’s to top that emotional hit, but it’s certainly to have an emotional hit. It’s like, “Why tell the story? Why do we need to do this again? How do we do that without doing another dog?” So we speak about it as John Wick the next chapter, and what is that emotional hook? What is that? So I think we have a good idea of that. What’s the next dog? Why does this go on?

One of the things I loved, and everyone loved, was all the stuff at the Hotel Continental. It was like a world within the world and it was just really cool. Is the hotel and that inner world part of the sequel?

REEVES: Yeah. I mean, Chad and the writer, Derek Kolstad, they’ve really listened to what people have enjoyed about the work and how they speak about it. So there’s definitely that influence of the other world, the Continental world — the look, the feel, what is it about the movie, what made people like it — is definitely being payed attention to and the world opens up in this chapter.

Do you know when you’re filming it?

REEVES: We’re scheduled to start at the end of October, maybe. Right now that’s kind of the target date but we’ll see.

But it’s pretty soon.

REEVES: Yeah. Hopefully pretty soon. Yeah.

Are you guys doing New York again?

REEVES: Yeah.

That’s very cool. There’s a lot of cool locations in the city that can be used.

REEVES: Yeah, yeah. We’ve just touched the surface.

One of the things that I really respected about the first one is the different and varied action set pieces. There was a lot of physicality and it didn’t feel like any action set piece was repeating itself, they all seemed different. Is there a challenge in your mind in topping that, and how have you maybe been working with 87Eleven, have you already started on that?

REEVES: Yeah. I started training a couple of months ago. We’re gonna do the same kind of thing in the sense of — what are the guiding principles? So it’s longer takes, know where you are on the space, who’s doing what, action with consequence. And then going to other levels of what the gun-Fu was, which was Jujitsu and Judo mixed with weapons and different styles of weapon training. So we’ve been opening up, I’ve been learning some other tools and different styles of that, and trying to develop some more techniques in terms of Judo and Jujitsu and bring those elements into the work. And then we have some other things that might be a little different.

I like the tease. But I’m also impressed with the fact…

REEVES But it’s all organic. It’s not like all of a sudden John Wick has superpowers, it’s got to be connected to the character. For me it’s character, character, character and for Chad as well, and Derek.

Do you envision this for you as a new franchise? Because the first one was so – I mean critically, people loved it and it did very well, and if the second one performs, is this something that you’re really down with the character, did you think this could be a franchise?

REEVES: No, I still don’t know. I mean, I think for me I’m interested in what happens to the guy and in this world. So when we were speaking about it, obviously it did well enough for the investors to want to do another one, which is cool, and it’s great to have the opportunity to further the story. But we had to come up with a reason why, and we came up with a reason that was good enough, that didn’t suck, and we’re just trying to make it better and better. In terms of a franchise, I don’t know, until you do it and it’s done, you don’t know, because it’s not source material, this is original goodness.

It’s not an IP. It’s nice.

REEVES: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is cool because there’s almost nothing you can’t do except just don’t be shitty, and so we’re trying not to be. And if it succeeds hopefully, knock on wood, we get to make a great movie.

Common will star opposite Keanu Reeves in John Wick 2, Lionsgate’s sequel to its surprise 2014 action hit.

The first Wick saw Reeves as an ex-hitman who is forced to dole out some retribution when gangsters break into his home, beat him up and kill his dog. He re-enters the tangled underworld of assassins he left behind and shows everyone that’s he’s still not to be trifled with.

Plot details for the new one are being kept muzzled but Common will be the movies’ chief villain, a head of security for a female crime lord.

The Continental, the hotel for assassins, will be open for business in Lionsgate’s John Wick 2.

Ian McShane is set to reprise his role as Winston, the owner of the boutique hotel that caters to hit-person community with its discretion, on-call doctors and no-killing rule. The hotel and its steely-eyed owner, who lethally enforces the rules, proved popular with geek audiences.

Joining star Keanu Reeves will be Ruby Rose, who just wrapped up filming Resident Evil: The Final Chapter along with Riccardo Scamarcio and Peter Stormare. They join familiar faces Ian McShane, Common, John Lequizamo, Bridget Monahan, Tom Sadowski, and Lance Reddick, according to Deadline.

The first film followed Wick, a retired hitman who goes after the crew that killed his puppy. The plot for the sequel is being kept secret.

Chad Stahelski, who directed the original, is back to direct and co-produce the sequel.