Back in 2017, Lionsgate bought an action thriller spec script called Ballerina, which was written by Shay Hatten and ranked on The Black List as one of the best unproduced screenplays of that year. The idea was to have Hatten rewrite the script to take place within the world of Lionsgate’s John Wick franchise – and Hatten was also hired to co-write John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, which included a set-up for the Ballerina concept of ballerina assassins. Hatten did his rewrite, Len Wiseman was hired to direct the film, Ana de Armas was cast as the title character, and now, Ballerina is ready to make its way out into the world, with a theatrical release scheduled for June 6th. We just saw a trailer for the movie a couple of weeks ago (that’s embedded above), and JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray reports that the audience at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas was shown an extended preview of the film!
Bumbray writes:
“Visual style is very much like John Wick. New trailer starts with her shooting a bad guy in the balls. Keanu Reeves is heavily featured, as is Ian McShane. Ana de Armas uses a Russian accent and sounds good. Some great looking action. Not based on physical strength; more agility. Looks like she has a major set piece fight with Daniel Bernhardt, who Reeves fought in John Wick (not the same character) and Bob Odenkirk fought in Nobody. Also has a CRAZY fight where she takes on another woman with blades in a kitchen and they start smashing each other with broken plate after broken plate. The action is very much in the Chad Stahelski style. As for Wick’s role – he’s sent to assassinate her and they have a fight. Seems like he’s actually an antagonist. Pretty neat.“
The film follows Eve Macarro (de Armas), who is beginning her training in the assassin traditions of the Ruska Roma criminal organization. Although the spinoff will obviously be focused on Ana de Armas’ character, it will feature appearances from several characters from across the John Wick franchise, including Ian McShane as Winston, the owner of the Continental Hotel, the late Lance Reddick as Charon, the Continental’s concierge, and Anjelica Huston as the Director, the head of the Ruska Roma. Catalina Sandino Moreno, Gabriel Bryne, and Norman Reedus are also in the cast, playing undisclosed roles. And yes, John Wick himself will also be showing up in the film.
The story takes place during the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, which explains how Keanu Reeves can appear as John Wick. We’ve previously heard that de Armas was quite excited to work with Reeves, and his appearance came at the perfect time during the production.
“We’ve been in Prague filming for four months. We still have one more month to go. And I’m in pain,” she explained. “You know, my body, my back, everything hurts. I’m complaining, I’m sore, I’m bruised. Bond was fifteen minutes. This is a whole movie, another level. But the other day, Keanu and I were rehearsing our very difficult stunt scene, and this man is just rolling and throwing me and doing crazy stunts. And I’m like — I can’t complain anymore. Because he is doing it! He truly is the best.“
Ana de Armas and Len Wiseman were both at CinemaCon and talked a bit about their work on the film. While de Armas only had three weeks to train for her action scenes in the James Bond film No Time to Die, she did four months of training for this film, going to the gym, doing stunt training, and practicing shooting. She also had to incorporate ballet into her character’s style of fighting. Ballet, while beautiful, is painful, so she felt that idea helped her find the character. Wiseman said that he feels the strength of the John Wick series is the cleverness and wit of the action, and he liked playing into the action tropes and then subverting them. He wanted people to say, “Holy shit, I did not expect that.” They also said the scene where characters are smashing each other with plates was hard to film as those plates basically break when you touch them. It was a mess.
Lionsgate has so much faith in the film, they’re probably going to start rolling out screenings to exhibitors much earlier than usual.
How does the description of the Ballerina extended preview sound to you? Are you looking forward to this movie? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
