I think most people who are casually familiar with Ballerina hitting the movie release schedule on June 6, 2025 are probably already John Wick fans. While we’ve known for a while Keanu Reeves would factor into the plot, I really couldn’t tell from Ballerina’s trailers if this movie would stack up with what we’ve seen from the franchise before. I can now only humbly apologize to Lionsgate and say that thought was probably out of line. At CinemaCon 2025 today during the studio's panel (which we covered live), audiences were treated to a scene of Ana De Armas literally breaking a slew of plates in another woman’s face.
The Ballerina Scene That Debuted At CinemaCon 2025 Was Wild (And Involved Plates)
In Ballerina Ana De Armas plays Eve, a woman looking for revenge. During the sequences we saw today – and spoilers on what will probably be one of the most spectacular action sequences in the movie (and if it’s not, holy smokes what are we in for?)-- a man shows up at a restaurant intent on killing and shooting Eve. They attempt to gun one another down in the restaurant, but both seemingly run out of ammo. Quick thinking Even starts grabbing glasses and launching them at the man trying to kill her.
Next, she jumps on his back and claws at his eyes (it’s visceral) before he shoves her off and throws her onto a table. She wraps her legs around his neck and he picks her up and slams her into the table over and over again. The sound effects are intense, but she manages to annihilate his hand and then finds her gun and kills him. People were very pleased by this sequence watching it in the theater. They reacted loudly, but it turned out there was more.
She unexpectedly encounters a woman in the kitchen who has a large knife in her hand and tries to tell her she’s safe, but it turns out the woman is also there to kill her. She throws a meat pulverizer at her head and a tray of plates falls over. The two women scramble to grab plates and slam each other in the face repetitively with the serving ware before Ana de Armas nabs a gun and shoves the kitchen worker into the walk-in fridge, securing the door with a frying pan before muttering, “What the fuck.”
Director Len Wiseman said this off-kilter sequence is exactly the world he wanted De Armas’ Eve to inhabit. He told the room full of exhibitors and journalists that he wants moments the audiences will never “expect.” He likes waiting for those little pockets where the audience is breathing and thinks everything is safe and then going for the jugular, which is exactly what we saw with the plate scene. Or as he put it:
Just when people reach for the popcorn, that’s when I abuse that [trust]… that’s a hell of a lot of fun.
It’s a strategy that seems like it’s going to work, too.
But It Didn’t Come Without A Ton Of Intensity From Ana De Armas
Ana De Armas was at CinemCon for the clip premiere, and spoke about the intense work she went through in order to play the character. First and foremost it was “winter in Prague” when the movie was filming and there was ice everywhere. They ended up putting spikes in her shoes in order to ground her for some of the movie’s outdoor sequences. However, this isn’t 1923; and the weather wasn’t the real challenge. Instead the stunts were. She told the crowd:
For Bond, I only had three weeks of training, if you remember. But Ballerina was a whole different level. Definitely what I’ve done before in other action films helped me a lot to get through this one. This is by far the most physical and challenging thing I’ve ever done, it was a very extensive … process [3-4 months of training]. Not just strength training at the gym but 4-5 hours every day with the stunt team.
She also said during the panel she spent months doing these mad dash hours with the stunt team and then when she was done she’d ‘jump in a car’ and go to the shooting range and practice her form with that too. De Armas previously teased while filming “how much pain” she was in, and now that I’ve seen the scene I have, I totally get it. It sounds like she dug deep and used an inner mastery of pain to connect with the idea of being a ballerina.
Having in mind the ballet aspect of it all was really special. Ballet is one of the hardest disciplines you can ever practice; it’s so beautiful, but they are going through so much pain probably, and they just keep pushing through.
She’d keep in mind “her own pain” from holding the guns and all the training, calling it “really good” to help her to get into the right mindset and embody the character in the film. All in all, the new footage really sucked me in in ways the early trailers hadn’t.
We still have a while to wait on Ballerina, but Lionsgate also released some cool chatter about the new Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping movie, as well as new information on another Stephen King film (The Long Walk). This was peppered in between Now You See Me sequel footage and some info about the remake of American Psycho. More on the slate to come.
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