Thread: Ana de Armas Circling Lead Role in ‘John Wick’ Spinoff ‘Ballerina’

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The upcoming John Wick spin-off film, Ballerina, has officially cast Ana De Armas in the lead role. The 007 star's involvement was previously rumored, but Lionsgate made it official at CinemaCon.

Len Wiseman (Underworld) is directing Ballerina, which will reportedly begin filming this summer. John Wick: Parabellum writer Shay Hatten wrote the script. John Wick series veteran Chad Stahelski is producing Ballerina. His next directorial projects, meanwhile, include John Wick 4 and the Ghost of Tsushima movie.

De Armas played Paloma in the newest James Bond movie, No Time To Die, and she had an epic fighting and shooting sequence that showed off her action chops. A behind-the-scenes video from 007 showed the great lengths that De Armas went to in her preparation for the role.

Ballerina, like the John Wick series it's part of, will be full of action. Stahelski told The Hollywood Reporter, "We're not just copying ourselves over and over again with gun-fu or something like that." And because the character Ballerina is not a copy of Keanu Reeves' John Wick, viewers are "going to get a different take on things," Stahelski said. His acclaimed 87eleven stunt team that worked on the John Wick movies is also working on Ballerina for its action sequences.

As for the main John Wick series, John Wick 4 is coming March 2023, and Stahelski debuted a new trailer for it at CinemaCon. The video was not published online, but it features Wick in Tokyo talking about how he's going to "kill them all." Ian McShane's character, Winston, tells Wick, "I want you to find peace, John. The only path this leads to is death," according to Deadline, which saw the footage.

De Armas, meanwhile, has a number of high-profile projects in the works, including Netflix's first-ever original NC-17 movie, Blonde, as well as The Gray Man from Avengers directors Joe and Anthony Russo.


 
I love the John Wick films but do we really need spin-offs and a John Wick cinematic universe?
Movie would be better with female lead.

That's the thought process behind this. John Wick was fine, but toxic masculinity ruins everything. Get a woman in the starting role and we've got something special. It worked for the ladies Ghostbusters reboot, after all.
 
I love the John Wick films but do we really need spin-offs and a John Wick cinematic universe?

And to think all this started with the death of a dog. Shoulda left his dog alone.

Enjoy the Wick films but the world-building is all a bit

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With the exact value of the coins for sure coupled with all the other nonsense. Still enjoyable if you just settle into the spectacle and try not to overthink things.

Anyway, Ana De Armas is fucking delightful, so sure she may be a paperweight physically, but I'm down with it.

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Simp me up Scotty

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No regerts
 

Lionsgate's John Wick spinoff The Ballerina will be hitting theaters on June 7, 2024.

The news comes in the wake of John Wick: Chapter 4 racking up a current gross of $250M WW taking the four-pic franchise to over $833M WW.

Ana de Armas stars as an assassin trained in the traditions of the Ruska Roma with franchise dramatis personae Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane and Lance Reddick being back in addition to Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno and Norman Reedus.

Len Wiseman directs Ballerina off Shay Hatten's script with Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, and John Wick filmmaker Chad Stahelski producing.

The pic is a Thunder Road Films / 87eleven production.

John Wick: Chapter 4 opened to a franchise high at the box office with $73.8M in U.S./Canada, $138M WW.
 
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She's hot. But that's about it. Totally not interested. :/

Edit: the movie I'm not interested in.
 
Jesus you people hate everything

I think it actually looks pretty good.

If you go to the actual YouTube on the first video you'll see it's not an official trailer versus a concept one put together by Screencrush, made up of a bunch of shots from the John Wick Films interspersed with some of the footage in the second trailer. They do this shit a lot it seems which is why I'd always check the film production companies' channels versus take anything they put up at face value.

I'm not opposed to it, though Lance Reddick turning up in another John Wick film a year after he is dead is going to feel weird as fuck (RIP King). I do unfortunately kind of feel the franchise went off the rails once they introduced the bulletproof suits in 2 and since then it's just gotten dafter as the budget went up. In the first film the world-building was there but not delved into too much versus hinted at, but as the series progressed, increasingly the sense they just George Lucased the entire thing has become ever more apparent, and suffers accordingly.

With this are they going to reel it back in? Not a chance. I suspect if anything it will be even more absurdist.

The big question mark is whether they'll hint at Wicks's return for 5, and also maybe address the question of whether John is Winston's Son, as seemed to be implied at the end of 4.
 
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I didn't really mind the bulletproof suits because at some point you start to wonder how can John Wick realistically avoid taking a bullet for so long in these big elaborate action set pieces, especially in a world populated by assassins who shouldn't have the aim of a Storm Trooper.

I know in real life we have things like kevlar etc, that is designed to do just that. John Wick 4 just took that idea and exaggerated it because that's what movies do.

It's not like John Wick was ever grounded in reality to begin with. Any movie where a guy can walk into a room full of people with guns and survive is NOT realistic. I love martial arts movies, but they are all ridiculous. It just goes with the territory.

I got attacked by 50 dudes and kicked their asses! And then I woke up from my dream because no way in hell would that happen in real life LOL, but I'll still pay money to watch someone do it in a movie. Action movies are the epitome of the "rule of cool" trope.


One of the things I love about movies and video games is escapism.
 
I didn't really mind the bulletproof suits because at some point you start to wonder how can John Wick realistically avoid taking a bullet for so long in these big elaborate action set pieces, especially in a world populated by assassins who shouldn't have the aim of a Storm Trooper.

I know in real life we have things like kevlar etc, that is designed to do just that. John Wick 4 just took that idea and exaggerated it because that's what movies do.

It's not like John Wick was ever grounded in reality to begin with. Any movie where a guy can walk into a room full of people with guns and survive is NOT realistic. I love martial arts movies, but they are all ridiculous. It just goes with the territory.

I got attacked by 50 dudes and kicked their asses! And then I woke up from my dream because no way in hell would that happen in real life LOL, but I'll still pay money to watch someone do it in a movie. Action movies are the epitome of the "rule of cool" trope.


One of the things I love about movies and video games is escapism.

 
The "Rule of Cool" doesn't really apply to the bullet proof suits since they look lame as hell. A lot of the action in the Kyoto scene from JW4 was ruined because it featured a bunch of guys running around holding their jackets up to "block" bullets, which don't register any kinetic energy from the hits.
 
The "Rule of Cool" doesn't really apply to the bullet proof suits since they look lame as hell. A lot of the action in the Kyoto scene from JW4 was ruined because it featured a bunch of guys running around holding their jackets up to "block" bullets, which don't register any kinetic energy from the hits.

^ this.

I was just watching it being 'Shoot him in the foot, shoot him in the foot' It was dumb as hell.
 
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