The John Wick franchise is about to expand into newer territory now that Keanu Reeves has shot his last bullet in John Wick 4. A spinoff called Ballerina with Ana de Armas in the lead role has practically taken up the mantle. With Ballerina just right around the corner, Ana de Armas has spoken up about her role and how Hollywood needs to stop with the gender-swapping ideas.
Recently, Ana de Armas made an appearance at CinemaCon to promote her John Wick spinoff, Ballerina, and she gave some interviews about the upcoming movie. Ana de Armas was generally positive about her role as a spinoff character in the John Wick universe, given that she also made her debut as a Bond Girl named Paloma back in 2021.
To that end, de Armas was rather fond of female side character spinoffs and how they should be allowed to have their own movies. Additionally, the idea of gender-swapping roles, such as James Bond, is something that de Armas thinks could be counterproductive to the franchise.
“Why don’t we have more movies about Paloma? Let James be James and John Wick be John Wick. We’ll do our thing. When you get a woman fighting, you’ll be surprised by the things she can pull off,” claims Ana de Armas during her appearance at CinemaCon, courtesy of Variety.
For the record, Ana de Armas’ character in Ballerina would be Eve Maccaro, a dancer who became an assassin to avenge her father’s death in the John Wick mythos. Ballerina will thus presumably be grittier with its fight scenes. Sadly, it appears some people are disappointed that Ana de Armas’s reason for vengeance is a dead father instead of a dead cat.
Ballerina Won’t be a Female John Wick
Given how John Wick will also be present in Ballerina in a cameo role, fans are positive about Ana de Armas creating her own spotlight instead of being just a gender-swapped version of the character. Still, that didn’t stop certain people from likening her role to “John Wick but with a girl,” just as a certain Redditor put it controversially.
The trailers, however, have already pointed out that Ballerina will be smaller and weaker than the typical John Wick assassin and thus must have to rely on dirty fighting techniques or guile to overcome more physically imposing opponents or targets.
Granted, there have been original actress-led action movies in the past, such as Salt or even Atomic Blonde. It’s just that most of them were one-offs. Some successful ones, such as Kill Bill, did exist. Ana de Armas’ Ballerina could have a higher chance of getting a sequel or a branching series, given how it took place within an already popular franchise.
