Female-Led ‘John Wick’ Spinoff ‘Ballerina’ With Ana de Armas Delayed One Year For Massive Reshoots
Jacob Smith
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Another day, another female lead action film was delayed due to the need for reshoots.
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The John Wick franchise has been the most influential action franchise of the last ten years. If you’re going to watch a John Wick film you know that you’re going to get at least two and a half hours of people getting shot and killed in creative ways.
However, after the release of John Wick: Chapter 4 last year, it seemed like Lionsgate was moving away from Keanu Reeves and pivoting towards Ana De Armas in a spinoff entitled Ballerina that could spawn a new series.
Ballerina, starring de Armas as an assassin trained in the traditions of the Ruska Roma of Russia and Belarus, was originally supposed to release this summer on June 7th, but that plan has now changed.
Last week, Lionsgate confirmed that the upcoming spinoff has been delayed for a full year due to the director wanting to add more action scenes. According to Deadline’s report, the production will bring in series mastermind Chad Stahelski to work with the director Len Wiseman on the new sequences.
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The film being delayed a full year with just over three months left before its release raised some major red flags about the project. Insiders questioned whether the film is undergoing massive reshoots to fix a part of the movie that is major – and maybe disastrously broken.
Over the last several years, we have seen this tactic with big-name projects such as Captain America: Brave New World, Daredevil: Born Again, and Thunderbolts.
Ian McShane, one of the many stars of John Wick set to appear in the film, says that the reshoots are being done as a move to “protect the franchise.”
“It’s not reshoots, it’s new shoots,” McShane said in an appearance on BBC’s The One. “The new shooting for Ballerina, which is the spinoff with Ana de Armas of the John Wick franchise… you know, it’s like, they’ve got to protect the franchise.”
McShane continued via ComingSoon, “It was about a year ago that we did the movie Ballerina. They’ve looked at it, and Chad’s come in, the guy who directed all the John Wick movies, and they want to make it better. Keanu’s in it as well. It takes place between John Wick 3 and John Wick 4.”
This isn’t the first time that Chad Stahelski has been called to save a struggling film. If you remember, back in 2019, Stahelski joined Warner Bros.’ Birds of Prey film to assist Cathy Yan with the action scenes in her film.
The effort was in vain and that film turned into a box office and critical flop regardless of pandemic restrictions.
With intense reshoots around the corner, the question must be asked: can this film even be a success with an exploding budget?
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John Wick: Chapter 4 was the highest-grossing film in the franchise, drawing $440 million vs. a $100 million production budget. However, de Armas has yet to prove if she has any drawing power as an action star.
She starred in the critically panned Ghosted film with Captain America actor Chris Evans. The film was a $200 million actioner released by Apple TV that put de Armas in the role of a spy.
Hated by critics and audiences alike, it’s saddled with a 27 percent score and 55 percent from each class respectively on Rotten Tomatoes.
We will have to see if Ballerina, which is now slated for June 6th, 2025, suffers the same fate.
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