We Have Entered the Golden Age of Keanu Reeves

Twenty years after the first Matrix movie and 30 years after the release of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (but who’s counting?), 54-year-old Keanu Reeves is in the midst of a triumphant career renaissance. Or, as it’s aptly being called, a Keanussaince. John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum debuted at number one at the box office last month. Reeves played—to perfection—an exaggerated, insufferable, and completely hilarious version of himself in Ali Wong and Randall Park’s Netflix rom-com, Always Be My Maybe. He and Sandra Bullock have cutely been marking the 25th anniversary of Speed. And now, two new developments.

First, Marvel is courting Reeves to be part of its hallowed cinematic universe in any way possible. “We talk to him for almost every film we make,” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige told Comicbook.com this week. “We very much want to figure out the right way to do it.” (Speculation subsequently swirled that Reeves could slide into the roles of Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, or Galactus, Devourer of Worlds; he was previously rumored to be in consideration for a role in The Eternals.)

On top of one of the most popular and most lucrative media companies in all of Hollywood declaring itself all but desperate to work with him, Reeves is now also being considered for the honor of all honors—no, not an Oscar, but People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. After noting that an online petition is circulating, nominating Reeves to be Time’s Person of the Year—“Keanu is the most wholesome person alive,” it reads, adding that he has “secretly donated millions of his earnings to children’s hospitals”—Lainey Gossip astutely suggested that Reeves instead be anointed SMA.

“There is no one else who’d be a more fitting choice, especially not this year,” the site wrote.

For better or worse, the Keanussaince hinges not only on Reeves’s ageless brooding and overall staying power, but also the aforementioned wholesomeness—or, as The A.V. Club aptly put it, “meeting the very low bar of just being a famous male actor who simply doesn’t seem to be a piece of shit.” Reeves is also voicing the new, daredevil action figure Duke Caboom in Toy Story 4 and gearing up for Bill & Ted and John Wick sequels. The Keanussaince has only just begun. As a recent New Yorker article declared: “Keanu Reeves is too good for this world.”