Why Ballerina's Director Sees The New John Wick Universe Movie As Something Beyond A Spinoff Or Sequel
When it comes to discussing franchises, there is a vast lexicon of terms that can be used to describe different installments. We live in an age where there are far more than just simple sequels: there are spinoffs, prequels, crossovers, team-ups, capstones, legacyquels, reboots, retcons, and more. It provides modern filmmakers with a lot of creative options when it comes to adding to an existing canon, and it's something that director Len Wiseman very much appreciates when it came to making his new action movie Ballerina starring Ana de Armas.
Ballerina is a title that expands the breadth of the ever-growing John Wick universe (which announced a number of other exciting in-the-works projects a few weeks ago), and it sits in an interesting position within the continuity. When I spoke with the film's director earlier this year during a press day at 87Eleven Action Design, he explained how the movie slots into the timeline of the action franchise and noted that it's something a bit different than your standard sequel or spinoff. Said Wiseman,
It takes place between Chapter Three and Chapter Four. It was a fun journey to find how it, how it intertwines with three. It was also more interesting to me of like doing that than in say a spinoff, because it's really more of a parallel story within that same world during chapter three and also how John Wick intervenes with our timeline. So I was more attracted to that because it was not like a sequel or a spinoff. It was definitely in that world within the thing.
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Audiences who have seen John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum have gotten an early look into the part of the canon world that will be further explored in Ballerina. In the 2019 movie, the titular Keanu Reeves character is looking for safe harbor as he is being hunted by every assassin on Earth, and he finds it in a theater with an old acquaintance known as The Director (Anjelica Huston). It's during the sequence at this location that we learn of a program that simultaneously trains young women to be both dancers and killers – and it's here that Ana de Armas's Eve Macarro enters the picture.
The story in Ballerina essentially uses this sequence as a launching pad, and while it unfurls principally with Eve on a solo mission of personal vengeance, the plot also eventually sees her cross paths with the legendary Baba Yaga as he is gearing up for what audiences got to witness in 2023's John Wick: Chapter 4. It's a cool twist for fans who enjoying marathoning their favorite franchises in special watch orders.
Further solidifying it within the John Wick franchise, Ballerina not only features Keanu Reeves' return as the world's most dangerous assassin and Anjelica Huston reprising her role as The Director, but it also has Ian McShane back as Winston Scott and Lance Reddick delivering is final performance as Continental Hotel concierge Charon. Long in the works, Ballerina will be arriving in theaters everywhere on June 6.
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4 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Unoriginal ‘Nobody 2' forgets what worked in the original
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How to access the Battlefield 6 open beta, how to preload, and when it starts
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Yahoo
4 hours ago
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When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. As weekend two of the Battlefield 6 beta gets into swing, folks are increasingly skeptical of all these small to medium maps. The lack of a truly "big" Battlefield map was the loudest criticism coming out of last weekend's playtest, and the only new map added this week isn't squashing worries that Battlefield 6 is prioritizing the Call of Duty crowd: Empire State, an infantry-only map with zero vehicles, is the smallest one we've seen yet. The cries for clear skies and open ranges haven't inspired an official response from Battlefield Studios, but DICE lead producer David Sirland assured fans that "large maps exist" earlier this week. "Speed is a factor of map size. We picked these maps to make sure we hit the full-octane version of Battlefield on the head—and made everyone see we can handle that too," Sirland wrote on X. "Large maps exist, and the tempo scales accordingly; you'll be able to see soon enough!" Even still, the way Battlefield 6 labels its modes has some questioning if EA has a different definition of "large" than the rest of us. The new Attack & Defend playlist, consisting of Rush and Breakthrough, is listed as "large-scale battles," despite Rush's cramped, aggressively linear 12v12 map layouts. That disparity is already inspiring some decent memes: "Leaked" images of new Battlefield 6 maps that are literally just Call of Duty maps. Devs have confirmed they are adding another large scale map this weekend from r/Battlefield New Medium-Large Scale Map Leaked Before Release from r/Battlefield Sirland's comments about large maps prompted me to take a second look at BF Studios' official website to determine how much large-scale Battlefield-ing we should actually expect from its nine launch maps, judged by how many vehicles are present. Fewer generally means smaller. Here's what I've got: Siege of Cairo: Small, infantry-focused, tanks only Iberian Offensive: Small, tanks and jeeps Empire State: Small, infantry-only, no vehicles Liberation Peak: Medium, all vehicles Operation Firestorm: Medium or large (depending on how closely it sticks to the BF3 version), all vehicles Saints Quarter: Small, infantry-only, no vehicles New Sobek City: Described as "all-out war across construction sites and massive sand dunes" with jeeps, tanks, helicopters, but no jets Mirak Valley: Described as "the largest map at launch", all vehicles Manhattan Bridge: Described as "close-quarters" with helicopters, but no mention of jeeps or tanks By my count, that means Battlefield 6 will have just three maps that capture the full experience of transports, tanks, helicopters, and jets at launch. Personally I think that's a bummer, because it also suggests only three maps have a large enough footprint for jets to even make sense. Hopefully, New Sobek City will still feel large with only helicopters, because the more I play Cairo, Empire State, and Iberian Offensive, the more I see myself filtering those out of my regular rotation in the full game. Since most people probably aren't going to comb over official map descriptions before launch, I suspect we're barreling toward a nasty collision of expectations vs reality come October 10. Longtime fans want and expect Battlefield 6 to be huge the majority of the time, and I don't think that's what we're going to get.
