Keanu Reeves

Keanu Reeves (birthname: Keanu Charles Reeves) has starred in three of the most iconic and successful franchises of recent decades—Bill & Ted, The Matrix, and John Wick—while regularly working with American independent filmmakers such as Richard Linklater. His career began at 21, with his first significant casting being as a co-star in Tim Hunter’s acclaimed indie drama, River’s Edge (1986), starring Crispin Glover, Ione Skye Leitch, and Dennis Hopper, earning a robust $4.6 million.

Reeves’ breakthrough happened in 1988 and 1989 with two wildly different movies: Stephen Frears’ and Christopher Hampton’s fine adaptation of de Laclos’ Les liaisons dangereuses, Dangerous Liaisons (1988), starring Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Uma Thurman, and grossing a solid $34.7 million; then as co-star (as Ted) of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), co-starring Alex Winter, and earning four times ($40.5 million) budget ($10 million), and launching a hit franchise.

Another hit comedy followed for Reeves with the Ron Howard-directed Parenthood (1989), starring Steve Martin, Tom Hulce, Rick Moranis, Martha Plimpton, Jason Robards, Mary Steenburgen, and Dianne Wiest, and grossing $126 million, or over six times $20 million costs. An iconic hit for Keanu Reeves which cemented his leading-man status was the Kathryn Bigelow-directed action movie, Point Break (1991), co-starring Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, and Lori Petty, and netting a gnarly $83.5 million global gross.

Reeves’ first sequel was Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991), with new cast members Joss Ackland and George Carlin, earning a mild $38 million. Reeves’ second important indie film was as a co-star in Gus Van Sant’s Shakespeare-inspired My Own Private Idaho (1991), co-starring River Phoenix, William Richert, Udo Kier, and Jim Caviezel, and grossing over $8 million in the North American and UK markets. Reeves followed this with another major filmmaker, Francis Ford Coppola, on Dracula (1992), in which Reeves played Harker opposite Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Richard E. Grant, Tom Waits, and Monica Bellucci, grossing a strong $216 million globally.

Another Shakespeare-based for Reeves was as Don Juan in Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing (1993), starring Branagh, Michael Keaton, Robert Sean Leonard, Emma Thompson, and Denzel Washington, and earning a healthy $43 million worldwide. Reeves’ next movie with filmmaker Gus Van Sant was the failed (bombing with a mere $1.7 million take) adaptation of Tom Robbins’ jocular novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), with Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, Angie Dickinson, Pat Morita, John Hurt, and Rain Phoenix.

Reeves’ next collaboration with a world-class filmmaker was Bernardo Bertolucci’s Little Buddha (1993), with Chris Isaak and Bridget Fonda, grossing a weak $48 million on an estimated $35 million budget. A huge hit for Keanu Reeves was the Jan de Bont-directed action hit, Speed (1994), with Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Joe Morton, and Jeff Daniels, taking in an astounding $350.4 million worldwide gross on an estimated $37 million budget. An unusual project for Reeves was Johnny Mnemonic (1995), the cyberpunk movie written by cult author William Gibson and painter Robert Longo, with Dolph Lundgren, Takeshi Kitano, and Ice-T, earning over $52 million, over double $26 million costs.

Another successful adult drama for Reeves was director Alfonso Arau’s U.S.-Mexico co-production with 20^th Century Fox, A Walk in the Clouds (1995), with Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Anthony Quinn, and Giancarlo Giannini, grossing globally $91 million, over four times $20 million costs. After some indie movies such as the Jack Kerouac-themed The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997), Reeves co-starred with Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate (1997), directed by Taylor Hackford and featuring Charlize Theron, Jeffrey Jones, Judith Ivey, and Craig T. Nelson, with a solid $153 million take on a $57 million budget.

Keanu Reeves next starred in one of his most memorable roles and franchises, Neo in The Matrix (1999), written and directed by The Wachowskis, co-starring Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano, making Warner Bros. a bank-full of cash with over $467 million in its initial theatrical run (as well as four Oscars), excluding massive residual returns, and launching an innovative franchise that straddled cult status and mass-audience hit. Reeves co-starred with Cate Blanchett in The Gift (2000), directed by Sam Raimi and written by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson, co-starring Giovanni Ribisi, Katie Holmes, Greg Kinnear, and Hilary Swank, quadrupling $10 million costs with a $44.6 million take.

After the unsuccessful remake of Sweet November (2001) with Charlize Theron, Keanu Reeves turned to sports comedy with Hardball (2001), co-starring Diane Lane and John Hawkes, but failing to return a profit for Paramount. Reeves’ 2003 was dominated by the double-bill Matrix sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, with new cast members Jada Pinkett Smith, Monica Bellucci, and Lambert Wilson, grossing a combined $1.1 billion worldwide. These tended to overshadow Reeves’ other 2003 hit, the comedy Something’s Gotta Give starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, earning $266.7 million globally.

Reeves’ remarkable box office run continued with his starring title role as Constantine (2005), marking Francis Lawrence’s directorial debut, co-starring Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBoeuf, Tilda Swinton, Djimon Hounsou, and Peter Stormare, and earning a solid $231 million worldwide. After playing a feature role in Mike Mills’ well-liked but commercially failed Thumbsucker (2005), with Lou Pucci, Swinton, and Vincent D’Onofrio, Reeves joined Richard Linklater to star in the rotoscope-animated sci-fi thriller based on Philip K. Dick’s novel, A Scanner Darkly (2006), co-starring Robert Downey, Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder, but failing to click at the box office with a weak $7.7 million take.

Keanu Reeves reunited with his Speed co-star, Sandra Bullock, in the romantic drama, The Lake House (2006), a remake of the South Korean drama, Il Mare (2000), directed by Argentine filmmaker Alejandro Agresti and although critically panned, did well at the global box office with a $115 million return. Another box office success (more than tripling costs with a $66.5 return) for Reeves as a star was Street Kings (2008), written originally by James Ellroy and with Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, and Common.

Reeves headed another sci-fi movie, this one the $80-million-budgeted hit remake, The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), with Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith, John Cleese, Jon Hamm, and Kathy Bates, grossing a potent $233 million. A much smaller scaled drama was next for Reeves (in a supporting role) in writer-director Rebecca Miller’s ensemble film adaptation of her novel, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), starring Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin, Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci, Blake Lively, Julianne Moore, Winona Ryder, and Shirley Knight, premiering at the Berlin Film Festival.

Another Berlin premiere for Reeves (as star-narrator and producer) was the documentary about photochemical and digital film creation, Side by Side (2012), featuring filmmakers and actors James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Robert Rodriguez, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, Lars von Trier, George Lucas, Greta Gerwig, Richard Linklater, John Malkovich, The Wachowskis, Christopher Nolan, and Joel Schumacher.

One of Reeves’ rare commercial bombs was his directorial debut in which he also starred, in the martial-arts-themed Man of Tai Chi (2013), with Tiger Chen, Iko Uwais, and Simon Yam, earning only $5.5 million on a $25 million budget. Martial arts were proving to not be the best move for Reeves at this time, since his subsequent movie, the huge budgeted ($225 million estimated) 47 Ronin (2013), also tanked at the box office ($151.8 million), with a Japanese cast including Hiroyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano, Rinko Kikuchi, and Ko Shibasaki.

Keanu Reeves racked up yet another strong franchise as a star with the action thriller John Wick (2014), the surprise breakout hit co-starring Michael Nyqvist, Bridget Moynihan, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, and Willem Dafoe, earning $86 million globally and setting up several sequels starting with John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum (2019), and John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), all directed by Reeves’ former stunt body double player, Chad Stahelski, and grossing a combined (for 2 and 3) $500 million worldwide.

Reeves served as narrator for writer-director Steven Okazaki’s film tribute to legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, Mifune: The Last Samurai (2015), premiering at the Venice Film Festival and then performed a spoof voice role in the comedy named for him, Keanu (2016), starring Jordan Peele (who also wrote and produced) and comedy partner Keegan-Michael Key (who also produced), with Tiffany Haddish, Method Man, Luis Guzman, Nia Long, and Will Forte, earning $20.7 million worldwide.

Playing a rare supporting role, Reeves joined filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn for his wild drama about the Los Angeles fashion industry, The Neon Demon (2016), starring Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, and Christina Hendricks, grossing a weak $3.4 million. After working with rising writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour in a supporting role in the little-seen The Bad Batch (2016), with a starry cast including Jason Momoa, Suki Waterhouse, Giovanni Ribisi, Jim Carrey, and Diego Luna, winning the Special Jury Prize at the 2016 Venice film festival, Reeves starred in the commercial bomb, The Whole Truth (2016), co-starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Renée Zellweger, and Jim Belushi.

Some box office failures followed Keanu Reeves as star (and producer) was the Matthew Ross-directed drama, Siberia (2018), as well as co-star of writer-director Victor Levin’s rom-com, Destination Wedding (2018), with Winona Ryder (grossing only $2.2 million) and the medical sci-fi thriller, Replicas (2018), earning just $9.3 million on a $30 million budget.

Keanu Reeves made the unexpected move into a spate of voice performing roles in animated features, starting with Disney/Pixar’s anticipated sequel, Toy Story 4 (2019), in which Reeves played Duke Kaboom opposite Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, Bonnie Hunt, Jeff Garlin, Jordan Peele, and Keegan-Michael Key, grossing a blowout number of $1.07 billion box office on a $200 million budget and winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar.

Reeves appeared as a vocal actor in two other animated features during this period, including writer-director Tim Hill’s The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020), with Tom Kenny, Awkwafina, Snoop Dogg, Tiffany Haddish, and Danny Trejo, and Jared Stern’s DC League of Super-Pets (2022), with Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, John Krasinski, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, and Diego Luna, earning a strong $207.4 million global box office on a $90 million budget. Reeves’ producer credits continued with Already Gone (2019) and the John Wick spinoff thriller, Ballerina (date to be announced), starring Ana de Armas, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, and Angelica Huston.

Reeves continued with two of his most successful franchises with Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020), with Alex Winter, and with Kristen Schaal, Anthony Carrigan, Holland Taylor, and Kid Cudi, which unfortunately bombed with a poor $6.3 million gross (on a $25 million budget), and the much-anticipated, much-debated The Matrix Resurrections (2021), directed by Lana Wachowski (who also co-wrote and co-produced) and with new cast members Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Christina Ricci, and Jada Pinkett Smith, and which surprisingly lost money with an underwhelming $159 million return on a $190 million budget.