First Photos of John Wick: Chapter 3 Cause Fans to Fear the Hitman's Dog Has Died — Again

John Wick fans were both excited and fearful after their first sneak peek at the latest installment of the franchise.

On Wednesday, the first photos from John Wick: Chapter 3 were released by Entertainment Weekly and on Twitter.

In one of the shots, antihero hitman Wick (Keanu Reeves) walks alongside newcomer Sofia (Halle Berry) and two Belgian Malinois dogs, but not Wick’s pit bull.

In the first film, Wick seeks vengeance after his beagle puppy Daisy is killed, while the second film features a pit bull that Wick walks off with during the final scene.

Considering what happened to Wick’s first puppy, fans feared his pit bull suffered a similar tragic fate in the upcoming film.

“A new dog… now I’m scared what happened to his previous dog! I need answers!” wrote one Twitter user.

“DON’T TELL THEY KILLED THE DOG FROM CHAPTER 2” added another person.

“1 more dog – 1 more revenge,” another user wrote.

“Left: before dogs die Right: after dogs die Is this the entire story orrrrr,” guessed someone else.

Others began to speculate about the third movie’s plotline based on the images and their scenic backgrounds.

“I heard the dogs die of heat exhaustion at the start of the film and the rest of the film is John Wick shooting sand,” joked one Twitter user.

“Looks like he has a new dog,” guessed someone else. “Calling the ending now. He dies and the dog lives.”

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But the two new dogs do not necessarily signal the demise of the hitman’s pooch. The dogs pictured in the photos belong to Berry’s character, according to Entertainment Weekly.

“Whereas John’s [first] puppy was symbolic of his wife, Halle’s two dogs are symbolic of someone she’s lost,” director Chad Stahelski told EW, noting an action sequence that will be featured around her “canine assistants… They work very well tactically.”

As for Wick’s pit bull pup, he seems to be alive and well (for at least some portion of the film), as Reeves was photographed filming scenes alongside the dog over the summer in New York City.

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Fans can expect John Wick 3 to pick up where Chapter 2 left off — with Reeve’s effortlessly cool, skilled assassin Wick fighting off countless bad guys to stay alive.

Reeves previously spoke about enduring the rigorous training with weapons and fight choreography, explaining that they left a mark on him, both figuratively and literally.

“I inherit his physical feeling,” Reeves told PEOPLE of bringing pieces of the character home with him. “Just the bumps and bruises and stuff like that, but I do feel like I have a bit of John Wick in me.”

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The actor also admitted that he temporarily inherits a few of Wick’s assassin habits.

“When I’m in it, when I’m training and I’m in it [during production], definitely my contact with the earth, the way I move in the world, my sensibilities, especially playing John Wick — I’m way more hypervigilant,” he said.

“I just automatically scan rooms, it just happens,” he added. “And because you’re doing so much judo and jiujitsu, your grip changes or like you get that feeling in your hands if you grab something, it’s like you’re in, you’ve got that [tension].”

John Wick: Chapter 3 hits theaters on May 17, 2019.