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.
The best moment in the entire franchise is after the assassination squad is sent to his house in the first movie. I saw it in theaters and fully, unconsciously anticipated that when the police strobe lights started flashing through the windows, that we would get a tense scene of John Wick attempting to distract the cop and send him away without the bodies being discovered.
When instead he opens the door wide, and the cop casually peers past his shoulder, and just asks, “you working again?”, it’s such a delightful, comical, surprising reveal. The concept worked best when we as the audience expected the world to function familiarly, and it could playfully subvert those expectations in small ways. They dove so deep into the capital-L lore beginning in the second movie, that we no longer expected the world to function familiarly, and thereafter stopped being surprised.
The first flick is a bonified good movie. The rest are, varyingly, titillating scenes of artfully choreographed and executed action set pieces loosely strung together by indulgently juvenile nonsense.
Genuinely great scene. So is the phone call with Aurelio (“I heard you hit my son”), another excellent setup and play on expectations. And Perkins’ death which is one of the most memorable ways to kill off a powerful antagonist.
This is exactly it. By 4, the world is so nonsensical that it barely resembles the first. I view the first in a vacuum because the others actually harm it— why did the police even bother showing up in the circus world of the sequels where shootouts happen in the open? They also stopped with the playful subversions and I think tried to rely on the nonsense world to keep it light. I hadn’t actually seen the playfulness put to words, but you nailed it.
I’m glad the filmmakers probably had fun but the sequels can’t capture the almost believable action, genuinely decent plot, and emotional payoff. That and the general tone was totally discarded. I still watch 2 and 3 sometimes for the choreography, but damn if they don’t pale compared to the first.
Lol I do the same thing! If I watch any of the sequels I view them essentially as fanfic. Your point about emotional payoff in the first is really good too. It’s easy to forget watching the sequels that the dramatic core of the first movie was John’s grief for his wife. The dramatic core of the sequels is little more, as I remember, than the convoluted bureaucracy and politics of John trying and failing to be left alone.