From the World of John Wick: Ballerina is set to establish an unexpected connection between its protagonist and one of the franchise’s major characters. The Ballerina spinoff hosted a panel at December’s CCXP 2024 in Brazil with stars Ana de Armas and Ian McShane in attendance. During the panel, McShane outlined the relationship between his character Winston Scott and de Armas’ protagonist Eve Macarro in the movie.
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“I know secrets about her that she will try to find out later on,” McShane stated in response to a question about Winston and Eve’s connection in the spinoff, per Collider. “Obviously, I kept tabs on her over the years since she’s been under the ballet tutelage of the character of Anjelica Huston. But Winston, you still don’t know who he is, which is kind of nice. He’s the more enigmatic character.”
Additionally, McShane stated that the spinoff establishes Eve as “the Baby Yaga” compared to John Wick’s Baba Yaga.
McShane’s description of Winston’s role in Ballerina indicates some degree of prior history between him and Eve in the movie. By extension, the same could also be the case for Eve and John Wick himself. Keanu Reeves’ Baba Yaga previously was shown having a connection to Anjelica Huston’s Director in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, who oversees the New York-based establishment of “ballerinas.” With the Baba Yaga returning to lend Eve a hand in Ballerina, the movie could theoretically reveal it is only the latest mission she has embarked upon with John Wick.
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One of two upcoming John Wick spinoffs (the other being the Donnie Yen-led Caine spinoff taking off from Caine’s role in John Wick: Chapter 4), Ballerina was originally scheduled to be released on June 7, 2024, before being postponed by a full year. This delay was in part due to original John Wick director Chad Stahelski coming aboard to add additional action sequences to the spinoff. The Ballerina trailer teases a level of spectacular action commensurate with the standards of the John Wick franchise, while McShane’s teases of Winston’s connection to Eve could also allude to both her and John’s futures in the series.
Ballerina occupies a unique spot in the John Wick franchise as both a spinoff and an interquel, taking place between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4. This is partially due to the latter film ending with the apparent death of John Wick. However, there is still a great deal of mystery regarding John’s return in Ballerina and its implications for the larger John Wick franchise.
Despite John’s apparent demise, there have been heavily persistent rumors of John Wick: Chapter 5, a prospect that Keanu Reeves himself has also directly addressed.
“My heart does”, Reeves recently stated on CBS This Morning regarding his desire to make John Wick: Chapter 5, “but I don’t know if my knees do.” At any rate, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina will bring the Baba Yaga back for at least one more mission, and the spin-off might pull back the curtain a bit more than expected on both Winston and John Wick’s connection to Eve Macarro.
From the World of John Wick: Ballerina will be released in theaters on June 6th.