Ana De Armas’ John Wick Spin-Off Ballerina Was Reshot With A Different Director

When the trailer for “Ballerina” arrived, it promised action sequences that actually looked like they could hold up against those of the “John Wick” movies. The spin-off film, from director Len Wiseman, is set between “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” and “John Wick: Chapter 4,” and stars Ana de Armas as the titular assassin, who sets out for revenge against those that killed her family. Following the lifeless, joyless, and ultimately pointless return to the Wick-verse that was “The Continental,” this latest spin-off isn’t exactly a guaranteed hit — even with a confirmed Keanu Reeves cameo. But again, the trailer showcased some combat sequences that suggested Wiseman has successfully aped the unique action stylings of franchise director Chad Stahelski — meaning, “Ballerina” might just deliver on the action front (at the least).

Now, we might finally know why the action in “Ballerina” looks as high-quality and uniquely Stahelskian as it does. In early 2024, Lionsgate pushed the spin-off back a full year from its original theatrical release date on June 7, 2024, citing necessary reshoots that were to be overseen by Stahelski himself. Soon after, actor Ian McShane, who plays the Continental hotel owner Winston Scott, spoke to the BBC about the reshoots, claiming that they were, in fact, “new shoots” which were intended to “protect the franchise.” That didn’t bode well for the state of the movie at the time, and now it seems those reshoots, or “new shoots” were even more extensive than we realized.

According to The Wrap, Stahelski reshot “most of the movie,” and Wiseman — known for helming “Underworld,” “Live Free or Die Hard,” and the 2012 reboot “Total Recall” — was not present for any of it.

It’s not easy to recreate the “John Wick” gun-fu style that Chad Stahelski and his “John Wick” co-director David Leitch established with the first installment in the franchise. It’s a style that Stahelski has refined over three sequels and perfected with the action fantasia that was 2023’s “John Wick: Chapter 4.” Matching the action finesse of these movies was never going to be easy for Len Wiseman, and if this latest report is to be believed, it proved a little too much for the director.

The Wrap cites “three insiders with knowledge of the project” as claiming that Stahelski had to oversee reshoots that essentially amounted to the bulk of the film being redone. This was, reportedly, down to Wiseman’s cut “not passing muster,” with one of the outlet’s sources claiming large parts of “Ballerina” were reshot in Prague without the director. One insider is quoted as claiming that Stahelski “had to clean up someone else’s mess,” adding, “Remember, this film is basically ‘John Wick 3.5. This story happens before ‘John Wick 4’ and after that film, they can’t have a failure in anything ‘Wick’ related.”

In truth, a failure of any sort at this point would be a death knell for Lionsgate, which is having its worst year ever at the box office following the mega flop that was “Borderlands” and the similarly disappointing box office returns for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis.” “John Wick” is the company’s biggest franchise at this point, so allowing yet another sub-par spin-off to hit theaters was never going to be allowed.

According to The Wrap’s sources, the extensive project of reshooting “Ballerina” took two to three months, with Chad Stahelski delaying work on his upcoming “Highlander” revival to ensure “Ballerina” was up to scratch. An insider told the outlet, “Chad is going to do ‘Highlander,’ but cleaning up ‘Ballerina’ pushed him by five months for sure,” adding that the script for this long-gestating project is still being refined. What’s more, “Highlander” could take even longer now that star Henry Cavill has signed on to front “Voltron” for Amazon MGM.

All of this sounds like yet more tumult for Lionsgate, which is in a notably precarious position at this point in 2024. The “Ballerina” situation also sounds eerily similar to the “Borderlands” reshoots, which were overseen by Tim Miller instead of the film’s original director, Eli Roth. In that particular case, reshoots could not save the film from becoming a box office bomb of epic proportions, which doesn’t bode well for “Ballerina” and its even more extensive reshoots.

That said, if anyone was going to oversee such a thing, you couldn’t ask for anyone better or more familiar with the material than Stahelski. The man is crucial to the success of the “John Wick” franchise, bringing his years of experience as a stunt performer and coordinator to the saga and creating an action filmmaking style that has been imitated to no end since the first “John Wick” movie arrived in 2014. If the action sequences in the “Ballerina” trailer are any indication, the director has ensured this latest excursion into the world of Wick measures up to the other films’ wild energy and over-the-top fight scenes. Whether the film surrounding those sequences matches that quality, however, remains to be seen.

“From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” hits theaters on June 6, 2025.