Very minor John Wick 3 spoilers ahead. Don't shoot the messenger.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum just had a -- wait for it -- killer opening weekend at the box office. That's important for world-building reasons. It not only makes another sequel more likely, it bodes well for The Continental TV series that's still in development at Starz and the spinoff movie that was discussed two years ago.
Do you remember that spinoff movie?
Back in 2017, it was announced that the John Wick franchise might be getting a spinoff movie called Ballerina. The script was being written by Shay Hatten, who is also credited as one of the writers of Parabellum. The story was said to follow a young woman raised as an assassin who must hunt down the other assassins that murdered her family. It was described, at the time, as being akin to La Femme Nikita, but with a "more pulpy, hyper-stylized bent a la Quentin Tarantino or Matthew Vaughn."
That was then. Fast-forward to 2019 and John Wick 3 just introduced Anjelica Huston as The Director, who also runs an academy that turns ballerinas into assassins. Putting two and two together, THR asked director Chad Stahelski if it was safe to say her introduction set up the Ballerina spinoff. Here's Stahelski's reply:
I think if you read Shay’s script and you look into the characters in that, you’d find your answer.
Not having seen Shay Hatten's script, it still seems pretty safe to say the answer is "yes." A lot can happen in two years to change a story, but the franchise-best box office success of John Wick 3 -- not to mention approval from both critics and fans -- suggests this spinoff has a great chance of moving forward. There are plenty of questions on how it would play out, including whether Anjelica Huston would be a main star and if Keanu Reeves would cameo at all. But we can add it to the list of spinoff/sequels from here.
(For the record, that long-gestating TV spinoff set at the L.A. Continental hotel is meant to have at least a Keanu Reeves cameo, and possibly a voice-over from Winston actor Ian McShane.)
John Wick franchise director Chad Stahelski also talked to THR about the third chapter sharing more background on Jonathan's own origin story. In a section of his answer, he also touched on things that might be relevant to the Ballerina spinoff:
... As far as backstory goes, everything you need to know about John is in Parabellum. We hid it very well and hopefully, you’ll watch this movie three or four times. You may not care, and if you do care, when you watch The Director’s scenes and you see the girls, and you put two and two together with the tattoos and the crucifixes, the kind of martial arts he does, who he talks to, what languages he speaks, you can piece together a fairly comprehensive background on where John came from and what his upbringing was like. I give the audience a lot of credit; hopefully, they can piece it together and they like piecing it together. It’s like a book; that’s why we numbered the movies as chapters...
Speaking of chapters, John Wick: Chapter 3 ended on a note that has fans curious about John Wick: Chapter 4. If you want spoilers, check out our breakdown of the Parabellum ending and start imagining what might be next in Keanu Reeves' movie, plus the movie and TV spinoffs. Let's just hope this doesn't turn into -- wait for it again -- overkill.
