From the World of John Wick: Ballerina (or, rather, just Ballerina) has hit theaters and it without a doubt captures the spirit of what made John Wick successful enough to launch its own increasingly lucrative franchise. Specifically, a charmingly stoic lead character with revenge on the mind, brutal and acrobatic combat sequences, and an interesting (sometimes neon lit) underground world of highly paid, extremely competitive trained killers. Ballerina is what the utterly forgettable miniseries The Continental tried to be: a successful spin-off of the core franchise. In fact, it only slows down when the protagonist of that core franchise pops up which, fortunately (no disrespect intended, Mr. Wick), isn’t that often.
The point is that Ballerina doesn’t need John Wick. And, outside of a single save, Eve Macarro doesn’t need John Wick. Thanks to the efforts of Ana de Armas, she’s a character with as much charisma fueling her as Keanu Reeves’ Wick has in his corner.
Spoilers for Ballerina Follow.
The Future of John Wick Doesn’t Even Really Need John Wick
Where does the John Wick franchise go from here? It’s both hard to say and isn’t. As for the core franchise, let’s face it, John died at the end of John Wick: Chapter 4. According to Chad Stahelski, director of the first four films, John Wick: Chapter 5 is indeed on its way, and it was even confirmed at CinemaCon in April 2025, but if the IP’s main character was indeed left in the past, it would not only be logical, but Ballerina has now proven that it’s do-able.
Ballerina ends much the same way John Wick: Chapter 2 did. Macarro has left a bloodbath in her wake. One of the pulse-free bloodied individuals is the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), whose life is not one you take and then just keep on living without consequence. There’s a bounty on her head which means, like Wick dealt with in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (and really the other three movies, but especially Parabellum), she’s now going to have to go through any number of experienced killers desperate for a payday and a clout boost.
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The threads of what makes a Wick movie work have been established, and they can be carried out without Wick himself. We’ve grown to like Macarro just as we grew to like Wick when he lost his pup. We don’t want to see her die, but we know things are only going to escalate from here. That’s enough momentum for two sequels to Ballerina, and those two sequels to Ballerina are enough to keep the Wick IP both fresh in people’s memories and relatively fresh in general, provided the whole taking out the High Table trajectory would be switched out for something else, which it assuredly will be.
Will Ballerina make as much money as John Wick: Chapter 4? Likely not, considering it’s a soft reboot and Chapter 4 was marketed as and functioned as a higher-stakes conclusion to a pre-established arc. But it will, however, likely generate enough interest to become profitable. And, considering the movie is good, it will have more fans than detractors. In short, Ballerina can, in retrospect, function both as its own fairly concise narrative as well as a passing of the torch film. Captain America: Civil War was effectively The Avengers 2.5 and, among the many places it took the MCU, one of the most important was the initiation of a torch pass from Tony Stark to Peter Parker. We’ve now lost Stark, a character we grew to love, but it doesn’t hurt so bad because we still have Parker.
Ballerina is set between the events of Parabellum and Chapter 4, so it already effectively is John Wick: Chapter 3.5, so there’s no reason we can’t move forward with our new primary assassin. Wick doesn’t need to pop up anymore much less frontline a film from beyond the grave. When a character arc is done so beautifully it’s almost a disservice to that arc to try and get some more mileage out of it. Wick avenged his pup and beat the High Table’s arrogant Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont at his own game. It’s perfectly fine for him to rest in peace.
But naturally, Reeves’ shoes are big ones to fill. And while de Armas has already proved she’s up to the task, she doesn’t necessarily have to fill them alone. She can share that task with Donnie Yen’s Caine, who has a spin-off movie en route now. That’s the best path forward for John Wick as an IP. Throughout four films it went to great lengths to build this whole world for viewers to enjoy. A world that has plenty of interesting alleys for the audience to walk down. No world is occupied by just one man, and it shouldn’t feel bound to him.
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