Ahead of the return of John Wick next March, it has been confirmed that Emerald Fennell, the Oscar-Winning writer-director behind 2020's Promising Young Woman, is on board to help write the script for the upcoming spin-off film set in the John Wick universe Ballerina.
Revealed by Ana De Armas, star of the upcoming revenge-fueled film, in an interview with Elle magazine, Fennell was brought in to help punch up the script and is working alongside Shay Hatten, writer of 2019’s John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and director of the upcoming film Len Wiseman. In the interview with Elle magazine, de Armas spoke on the importance of having a female writer and voice on the project. “It was really important for me to hire a female writer, because to that point when I got involved in the project, it was only the director, Len Wiseman, and another guy. And I was like, ‘That’s not going to work.’ So I interviewed, like, five or six female writers. We hired Emerald Fennell, which I was so proud of,” de Armas told the magazine.
Fennell is known for her work as both the writer and director of Promising Young Woman, a film that saw her win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay at the 2021 Oscars. She has also previously served as showrunner for the spy thriller series Killing Eve and also appeared in season 2 of Netflix’s royal drama The Crown. She is set to appear next in the Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling-starring Barbie movie that is set to release July 21, 2023.
The finer details of Ballerina have not been revealed as of yet. What is known is that the film will center on De Armas' character, who is a young assassin who is trained at the Ballet school seen in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. The story sees her set out on a quest for revenge against those who killed her family. This is all that is really known about the film as of now, with no additional cast members for the upcoming spin-off film currently announced.
There is currently no word on when we can expect to see Ballerina hit theaters, but we do know that the next film starring Keanu Reeve's John Wick, John Wick 4, is set to premiere in theaters on March 24, 2023, along with a fifth installment in the series currently in development.