With the next episode in the John Wick saga not due until May 2021, studio Lionsgate has hired director Len Wiseman to make a female-centered spinoff, Ballerina.
Based on a script by John Wick Chapter 3 – Parabellum writer, Shay Hatten, who also worked on Netflix’s version of Army of the Dead, the movie will be produced by Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee and Chad Stahelski. Keanu Reeves has a role as executive producer.
According to Deadline, the movie will focus on a “young female assassin who seeks revenge against the people who killed her family”.
The character had a brief cameo in Reeves’s John Wick Chapter 3, portrayed by ballerina Unity Phelan, but it’s likely the studio will be looking for a better-known actress to play the role in her own movie.
In John Wick Chapter 3, John Wick meets with the Director, portrayed by Anjelica Huston, who we find is involved with training young male wrestlers to be assassins, perhaps providing a clue to Wick’s own background.
Likewise, the Director is involved with training young dancers to be assassins, leading us to the character of the Ballerina.
The question remains, of course. Will Ballerina be any good?
Or, perhaps, would a John Wick movie work without Keanu Reeves’s incredible likability?
My opinion is no.
I suspect this will be a rather formulaic revenge movie that will hit similar plot beats as the John Wick movies.
That said it’ll be something to watch while we wait for John Wick 4: The Wickening.
