Confirmed at this year's CinemaCon, and posted on the event's official Twitter page, it's been confirmed the upcoming female-led spin-off to the hit John Wick action franchise, tentatively titled Ballerina, will enter production this summer, though no release date has been locked in:
The spin-off will star Ana de Armas as a female assassin dead set against seeking revenge against those responsible for killing her family. Given this will be her most mainstream leading role, it's appropriate to note that Armas actually got her start playing one of the antagonists in in the Keanu Reeves-starring psychological thriller Knock Knock (2015). Reeves currently plays the titular John Wick in the main films (with Chapter 4 currently in production and Chapter 5 already announced).
The spin-off was first announced in 2017 following the release of John Wick: Chapter 2 though the story set-up for Ballerina stems from the introduction Angelica Huston's character, The Director, in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum who is shown grooming young ballerinas to be assassins in the same facility where John Wick was trained. The film is separate from the upcoming TV show spin-off The Continental that will show a younger Winston (Played by Ian McShane in the films) as he establishes his role as head of the in-universe hotel that assassins stay at in-between jobs.
Ballerina will be directed by Len Wiseman (Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard) who will helm from a script by Shay Hatten who previously co-wrote John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum along with the Zack Snyder film Army of the Dead.
we saw it coming