Many of us saw this coming. Lionsgate‘s John Wick spinoff “Ballerina,” starring Ana de Armas, just had this “catastrophic” screening. I’m hearing the movie might be a “franchise killer.”
“Ballerina” is said to be a “borderline imitation” of the ‘John Wick’ movies, but messier and done via a “female assassin” perspective. The lore of the trilogy looms large here, and there’s “no running around the fact that it’s tonally inconsistent” and “poorly directed.”
If you remember, “Ballerina” had been delayed by a year from June 7, 2024 to June 6, 2025. ‘John Wick’ architect Chad Stahelski then agreed with Lionsgate to oversee production on the film. Supposedly, Stahelski then decided to shadow “Ballerina” director Len Wiseman on “additional action sequences” during reshoots on the film.
It was reported that David Castañeda and Sharon Duncan-Brewster had been added to the cast of “Ballerina.” Yes, they added new characters during these reshoots, that weren’t previously part of the original script.
Ian McShane, who stars in “Ballerina” was recently a guest on BBC’s The One Show and tackled these reshoots. The veteran actor implied that “Ballerina” was just not good enough and that they had to shoot entirely new sequences with another director (Stahelski). According to him, we shouldn’t call them reshoots, they are actually “newshoots.”
We’re going to Budapest. It’s not reshoots, it’s new shoots […] obviously, they’ve got to protect the franchise. We shot the movie a year ago. Chad [Stahelski] came in … and they want to make it better because you have to protect the franchise.
I downloaded Ballerina to watch on a plane a while back, thinking it was the John Wick spinoff. It took me half the movie to figure out it was not. I kept wondering why nobody has mentioned anything from the JW universe yet. Anyway, it was actually a pretty good movie, so maybe go watch that instead.