John Wick director Chad Stahelski has revealed he was initially against Keanu Reeves appearing in spin-off Ballerina, but understood why it needed to happen: to give the movie a "fighting chance."
The John Wick movies are unique in that their box office has grown with each release, to the point where John Wick 4 hit a huge $440 million globally.
It’s with John Wick’s success in mind that Chad Stahelski discussed Keanu Reeve’s appearance in Ana de Armas’ Ballerina in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter. He said that initially he was dead set against John Wick appearing in Ballerina, and revealed the cameo wasn’t even in the original script, but he understands why it ended up happening.
“That wasn’t in the original script,” Stahelski said. “To be honest, I was kind of against it. But I do see the benefit and we wanted to help out [director Len Wiseman]. We had just opened John Wick 4 and it was huge. He couldn’t go back to the model of the first John Wick and do a little $18 million indie thing and try to build it up.
"In order to stay in the same game, you got to give him a fighting chance. And the easiest way to transfer that over — at least, from the studio point of view — was have Wick in Ballerina in a special timeline.”
Ballerina launched last week and made $51 million at the global box office, a figure that is considered to be lower than expected for its opening weekend.
Given Ballerina’s soft opening weekend box office, it looks like Wick’s appearance failed to convince enough fans to turn up for the spin-off. Studio Lionsgate even added ‘From the World of John Wick’ to Ballerina’s title to make it clear the movie was Wick adjacent.
Still, further Wick spin-offs are in the works. But don’t expect Reeves to turn up every time. For example, Stahelski ruled out John Wick in Caine, the Donny Yen spinoff.
“The Donny Yen spinoff doesn’t have the John Wick character,” he confirmed. “It’s got Donny Yen and it’s an ode to kung fu movies. If John Wick 1 was about Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, this is about Chow Yun-fat, John Woo and Wong Kar-wai. So I think that one is a little easier to get it across to audiences because it’s in a sub-genre of what we love.”
IGN's From the World of John Wick: Ballerina review returned an 8/10. We said: "In spite of a slow start, Ballerina proves she belongs in The World of John Wick with fight choreography that’s every bit as creative (and fun) as anything else the series has given us and a story and character that stand on their own."
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
