It seems Lionsgate wants in on the cinematic universe fad and looks set to turn its action series John Wick into the next big expanded franchise (well, they couldn’t do the same for La La Land could they?!)
The Hollywood Reporter has noted that the studio is looking at an outward expansion for the action thriller after it acquired the rights to a new action script called Ballerina. The female-driven thriller is written by up-and-coming writer Shay Hatten, who is currently working for Robert Downey Jnr’s production company as a writer’s assistant and who wrote the screenplay for Maximum King, a script he also wrote that recently was added to the Black List.
Ballerina would follow in the style of La Femme Nikita, Luc Besson’s acclaimed 90’s thriller, the script also has “stylised” moments closer to Quentin Tarantino and Matthew Vaughn. The story reportedly “follows a young assassin who vows revenge against those that killed her family.”
Producer Basil Iwanyk, the man behind John Wick, will produce the film under his Thunder Road production company.
Directed by David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, the first John Wick was released in 2014 while its sequel, John Wick: Chapter Two, was released earlier this year to rave reviews and over $169.7million at the box office across the globe. Keanu Reeves plays the lead, a hitman forced out of retirement by a former colleague who is after supreme control of an international assassins ring.
The sequel starred Laurence Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne, Ruby Rose, Riccardo Scamarcio, Lance Reddick, Bridget Moynahan, Franco Nero and John Leguizamo and was directed by Stahelski alone after Leitch moved on to Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2.
A third John Wick film is planned as well with Reeves and Stahelski set to return, as the Ballerina spin-off but no release dates have yet been set.
