‘Den of Thieves 3' in the Works at Lionsgate, Gerard Butler and O'Shea Jackson Jr. to Return
Lionsgate, Tucker Tooley Entertainment and G-BASE are moving a third film in the 'Den of Thieves' franchise into active development.
'Den of Thieves 2: Pantera' opened in the No. 1 spot at the North American box office and has grossed more than $32 million at the domestic box office to date. The film launched on PVOD on Tuesday.
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It is expected that Gerard Butler will return to star and produce through his G-BASE banner, alongside partner Alan Siegel, and Lionsgate is in talks with franchise writer-director Christian Gudegast to return to write and direct. It is also expected that O'Shea Jackson Jr. will co-star in the third installment.
Earlier this month, Jackson Jr. told Variety he was hoping for more 'Den of Thieves' in the near future. 'I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: I'm trying to Vin Diesel this thing. To quote Ryan Reynolds, I want to work with Gerard until he's 90,' he said. 'I have such a family feel with these guys. I know how much I want to do these other films, but we cannot cheapen this beautiful thing that we made. This one took six or seven years to get done. I hope the next one doesn't. In our heart of hearts, we won't make it if it's not right and if it's not the same thing that made audiences fall in love with the franchise in the first place.'
Tucker Tooley Entertainment, which produced and co-financed the first film and brought the franchise to Lionsgate from STX, will co-produce and jointly finance 'Den of Thieves 3.' Tooley will produce under his label, and Lionsgate will distribute the next chapter.
Tucker Tooley Entertainment is a feature film and television finance and production company established by principals Tucker Tooley and Greg Renker. It has been a key force in shaping high-impact storytelling across both theatrical and streaming platforms, with its films grossing more than $2.6 billion at the worldwide box office.
Over a 10-month window between 2024 and 2025, Tooley delivered back-to-back hits, including Netflix's No. 1 film 'The Deliverance' and Lionsgate's theatrical release 'Arthur the King' with Mark Wahlberg. Other recent projects include 'Concrete Cowboy,' which also opened at No. 1 for Netflix, and 'The United States vs Billie Holiday,' which earned an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe win for lead actress Andra Day. The company's documentary 'Finding Satoshi' is set to release in 2025.
G-BASE, the production company founded by Butler and Siegel, has produced over 20 feature films since its inception in 2008, including 'Law Abiding Citizen,' the 'Has Fallen' trilogy, 'Greenland' and 'Greenland: Migration,' 'Plane' and the eight-part television series 'Paris Has Fallen' for StudioCanal on Hulu, soon to begin filming its second season.
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We're just going to move the bar to something we haven't done before. You've said that won't renege on the ending of , that John Wick will still have died. Has that evolved? The last time we spoke last year, you were trying to crack it. I'm not going to lie to you, it's a bit of a conundrum. Me and Mike Finch — the writer on 4 who's also writing 5 — we've got a pretty good story that I think is cool. Once we have a 50-page book, and if we're feeling it, we'll sit with Keanu and shape this thing. Look, everybody seems to want it. It's a matter of whether we crack it. We're actively working on it. It's just … is it going to be satisfying? Is a prequel possible? Because the anime movie is a prequel, I assume this wouldn't be. Keanu and I are not interested in going backwards. With the anime, you don't have to de-age, you don't have explain weird stuff, you don't have to add a backstory. You accept anime in its own language without explanations. Anime just goes pop. I know you've heard this before. But ended so well that there is a certain amount of … like there's this feeling that nothing popular is allowed to end anymore. I'm with you, man. Keanu and I have discussed this many times and feel the same way. We finished 3 and thought that was going to be the last one. Look, we never expected to end John Wick. I just hate cheesy endings. I hate happy endings. Over a long enough timeline, everything's a fucking tragedy. If you kill 86 people, you don't get away. So when we got to 4, we wanted to have something that had a lot of fate and consequence. The ending was going to be a cliffhanger. Then we were sitting in Japan [during the filming of 4] going, 'We didn't stick the landing.' [Our original ending] kind of sucked. 'Fuck, we got to finish this, right?' So I was really happy with the way 4 ended. It was Keanu and I saying, 'Thank you, it's been awesome, but it is time to go.' I didn't want to overstay our welcome. 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