After a couple of weeks of agonising wait, we finally know when we’ll be able to sit down with a giant bucket of popcorn and enjoy the second film in Keanu Reeves’ no-holds-barred John Wick saga. Want to know when that is? Come on in — we have something to tell you.
On Monday morning, the movie’s local distributor tweeted at a fan that it had confirmed an Australian and New Zealand release for the movie, but that dates were pending. It seems now, a few hours later, that those dates have been locked in.
John Wick: Chapter 2 will be released in Australia on April 20th. That’s the news coming to us right now from a couple of different readers (thanks Aaron, thanks Mark, thanks Natalie!), who say they’ve been contacted by a cinema chain by email with responses to their inquiries about John Wick 2‘s release date.
The email, delivered this afternoon, reads: “We’ve just received word that JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 will hit cinemas in Australia on April 20.”
Normally, just one of these suggestions would be enough for us to dismiss — we had fans swearing blue at us that it’d be out in Australia on the week of its international release, too — but three is a weight of evidence enough that we’d consider this legitimate. The cinema chain, too, is large enough that it’s not just one screen that may have negotiated special terms. We’re confident of this one.
We’ve contacted the movie’s Aussie distributor Entertainment One for a comment and — hopefully — confirmation, and will update this post as soon as we learn more.
Now, April 20th is 10 weeks — two and a half months — since John Wick 2‘s international premiere. That’s even longer than the wait between The LEGO Batman Movie‘s 48 days between international release, which we admonished Roadshow for late last year. That’s two and a half months of potential downloads by pirates, two and a half months of people watching other, not-John Wick 2 films instead.
And that’s disappointing. But, at the end of the day, at least Australia still gets John Wick: Chapter 2, and we get to talk about it with you guys. We’re really excited about it. We can’t wait.