Keanu Reeves says ‘movies are tough to get made’ when asked about new comic book project

Reeves has recently released a novel, ‘The Book of Elsewhere’, inspired by his BRZRKR comic book series

Keanu Reeves and Keith Clayton discuss ‘The Book of Elsewhere’ with Samira Ahmed, marking the opening night of the Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival on 22 October (Pete Woodhead for Southbank Centre)

Keanu Reeves has opened up about trying to make a live action version of hiscomic book series, stating that “movies are tough to get made”.

The 60-year-old Canadian actor, who recently avoided a serious injury during his professional racing debut, has now written his first novel based on the aforementioned comic.

The Book of Elsewhere, which he has co-written with Three Moments of an Explosion author China Miéville, is set in the same universe as the BRZRKR comics which follows the actions of an immortal warrior, simply known as B, attempting to understand his purpose.

Reeves wrote the first volume of the comics, along with Matt Kindt and artist Ron Garney, in 2021 and two more volumes have been released since.

Speaking at the launch of the 2024 London Literature Festival at the Southbank Centre, Reeves was asked by journalist Samira Ahmed, about whether he would be interested in playing the character, which does bear a striking resemblance to him, on screen.

Reeves didn’t confirm one way or the other but did state that the character is “very personal” to him but that he would “love to play the character”.

Asked whether a film is being made, Reeves, who was sat alongside the novel’s editor Keith Clayton, confirmed that there was but that “movies are tough to get made”.

(Pete Woodhead for Southbank Centre)

Expanding on the ideas of the potential film, The Matrix star said: “One of the ideas for me, from the very beginning, was to take this character and this world and have other mediums and other artists tell these stories. In the comics, we’ve had different writers and different artists work on them and in the novel, we worked with China.”

He added: “With the film, we are working with a writer called Mattson Tomlin and we have a director’s draft. So I’m interested in letting other artists play with the material and see what we can create. Hopefully, some cool stuff can come out of it.”

(Pete Woodhead for Southbank Centre)

In March 2021, it was reported by Variety that Reeves would be starring and producing a film and anime series of BRZRKR for Netflix.

In October 2022, Reeves told Collider that a script for the film had been completed by Tomlin but wasn’t sure if anyone would sign it off before suggesting that he would be interested in being the director.

At the time Reeves said: “I know how it’s a lot of work, but the film that I directed, Man of Tai Chi, was born, I became the director because I was part of the writing process, and I didn’t want to hand it over. I was like, oh, okay. I have to direct this. I’m not quite there yet on BRZRKR. I have to read the script, but I’m also interested in having a collaborator and what they could bring to it.”

At the 2024 San Diego Comic Con in July, Tomlin confirmed that he had submitted his latest draft for the film.