The Impact of John Wick: The Birth of a New Action Movie Era
There had been a lot of boring, CGI-filled schlock in the action genre for a long time, making it feel like it was too easy to throw away. Once upon a time, movies like Die Hard and Rambo were the best in their field. Now, fans are stuck with big robot fights and superhero movies, which aren’t always bad but feel too similar. That year, all of a sudden, out of the blue, a bright light showed up. It was an action movie that was so good, so powerful, and so easily recognizable that it was called the best new action movie in years and the movie that would change the action genre forever.
John Wick: The Birth of a New Era
Yes, that movie was John Wick. It was directed by Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, two experienced stunt performers who starred Keanu Reeves, the main character in The Matrix movies. The idea of a former killer going on a rampage out of revenge because his dog was killed, sounds crazy on paper, but it turned out to be the perfect starting point for a flawless action extravaganza. John Wick may have started as a cult classic that spread through word of mouth, but it quickly grew into a thriving brand with three equally great sequels and a new prequel series called The Continental. A fifth movie is also being planned, and now there are plans for a universe that is all linked.
Other than The Continental, which is the first John Wick TV show spin-off, there is also a secret project in the works that will be the first John Wick movie spin-off. In this new revenge-filled adventure called Ballerina, a new lead character will follow in John Wick’s path. This will add to the complicated mythology of this criminal underworld and may also shed more light on John Wick’s own mysterious past. There will be many new characters in Ballerina, but many old characters will also be back. Read on to discover who those people are and when the new movie will be available everywhere.
The Cast of Ballerina
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Ana de Armas as Rooney
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Keanu Reeves as John Wick
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Ian McShane as Winston
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Lance Reddick as Charon
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Anjelica Huston as The Director
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Togo Igawa as Captain
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Abraham Popoola as Frank
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Marc Cram as Concierge
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Jaroslav Vundrle as Russian
Release Date of Ballerina
The movie Ballerina will be in theaters on Friday, June 7, 2024. This is in the middle of the summer movie season. The film will be shown before the scary Warner Bros. and New Line movie The Watchers.
Trailer for Ballerina
They haven’t released a trailer for Ballerina yet, and it probably won’t be for a while.
Plot of ‘Ballerina’
The plot summary for Ballerina only says that “a young female assassin seeks revenge against the people who killed her family.” This doesn’t give us much to go on. Thanks to Keanu Reeves for talking a little more about the new project at CCXP 2022 while promoting John Wick: Chapter 4:
“[she is a] woman who has some challenging circumstances and who’s looking for revenge. Whoever killed her- someone killed her father. Who could that be? And so it’s her journey to actually understand her past. She lost her father at a young age, and shedoesndoesn’tt happened. Only that someone came into the house and killed her father, who had a tattoo. And as we know in John Wick, if you have a tattoo, something’s going on.”
Another thing Reeves said was that the movie will happen between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4. The idea of ballerina killers might sound familiar. That’s because we got a sneak peek at them in Chapter 3, when John asks The Director (Anjelica Huston), a mysterious person from his past, for help. As always, in the world of John Wick, things are not what they seem to be. This isn’t just a dance school; it’s a front for training skilled killers for different criminal groups. Another thing Reeves said makes it sound like there will be some kind of mystery going on with the main character, Rooney (Ana de Armas), figuring out who did it. There may be a link between this and the High Table killing her peers and the Director in the middle of Chapter 3, but the fact that her father was also killed makes me wonder who the killer is.
The Team Behind ‘Ballerina’
Len Wiseman, who directed the first two Underworld movies, will now be in charge of directing since Chad Stahelski is working on Chapters 4 and 5, as well as the planned Highlander remake and Ghosts of Tsushima adaptation. Shay Hatten, who wrote John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, wrote Ballerina at first as a separate movie. It was later changed to fit into the John Wick series. It’s like what happened in Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), where a story meant to stand alone was changed to fit into an existing IP. Emerald Fennell, who won an Oscar for her role in “Promising Young Woman,” co-wrote the new story with Hatten.
Film director Romain Lacourbas (The Witcher), production designer Philip Ivey (District 9), costume designer Tina Kalivas (Australia), and casting director Olivia Scott-Webb (The Queen’s Gambit) make up the rest of the team.