The John Wick franchise already has one spin-off coming in the form of prequel mini series The Continental, and now another highly anticipated offshoot of the Keanu Reeves movie, Ballerina, is seemingly close to casting its lead with reports that No Time To Die star Ana de Armas is in talks to take on the role of a young female assassin out for revenge on the killers of her family, who was seen briefly in John Wick : Chapter 3 – Parabellum as a trainee assassin who was a ballerina – so you can see where the spin-off’s title comes into it.
Ana de Armas is currently riding on a wave of success, having also appeared with Daniel Craig in the comedy murder mystery hit Knives Out and has upcoming roles in Netflix’s Russo Brothers action movie The Gray Man and the Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde. Joining the John Wick property is only going to further enhance her profile, and with the franchise clearly being a big money-spinner for Lionsgate, the character could easily end up in the flagship movie series in the future.
While the original John Wick arrived in 2014 as nothing more than a simple, one-off Keanu Reeves vehicle, it crawled through cinemas without making much of an impact. However, one of those moments of movie magic happened as the film picked up a cult following after its release on-demand, and soon Lionsgate – who love a good genre franchise – decided to continue to build the world of John Wick with a pair of sequels that delivered an ambitious step up and turned the standalone film into an instant intricately plotted story of a criminal underworld that they had only just scratched the surface of. Now we have John Wick 4 currently wrapping up filming, The Continental series about to begin its production and now the previously announced Ballerina taking the franchise down yet another dark, secluded alley with one of its lesser explored characters.
Ballerina was originally put into development in 2017 with an expected shooting schedule hinting that filming would happen sometime during that summer for a release in 2021. However, time moved on and then the pandemic put paid to many projects. While there were reports around that time that the studio, who already have a working script, written by John Wick 3 scribe Shay Hatten, and Underworld director Len Wiseman helming, were courting Chloe Grace Moretz for the lead but it seems that plan didn’t come together despite Moretz’s having played an action role as Hit Girl in the violent hit Kick Ass franchise, and a ballerina in the remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria.
As for details on the story itself, there is not a huge amount known, but at last reports the title role is a character called Rooney Brown, who by the time of the movie will be a full trained assassin who is forced to come out of “retirement” when her family are murdered by a gang of thugs in a European town called Sunnyvale, which is run by a corrupt mayor who is supported by an army of trained henchmen. While there are rumors that both Reeves’ Wick and Angelica Huston’s Director could both feature in cameo appearances, but like much of the information it is all subject to change as the project moves into production next year.
This news was originally reported by Deadline.
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