John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum provides the perfect action-packed jumping-off point for the spinoff that was planned years ago, the Ballerina.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, in theaters now.
John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum blows open the the franchise’s entire assassin universe. Director Chad Stahelski’s neo-noir action thriller reveals John’s history as a member of a tribe of killers that came to the United States from Belarus, and introduces new characters like Halle Berry’s Sofia and the fearsome Elder of the High Table.
There are plenty of new doors opened for potential spinoffs and prequels, including one that’s been planned as far back as 2017: the Ballerina. Thanks to John and his crucial meeting with the Director (Anjelica Huston), there are a couple directions that could possibly go.
In Chapter 3, Keanu Reeves’ John Wick visits the Director in New York City as she oversees her ballet dancers, in hopes of begging safe passage to Morocco to meet the Elder and seek redemption with the High Table. As we learn more about their connection, we see the program the Director runs, training young male wrestlers to be assassins, suggesting that’s where John cut his teeth.
More so, young ballet dancers are depicted in a setup that’s similar to the Red Room from Black Widow’s backstory in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and to the Red Sparrow and Wanted franchises. The Director trains these girls to be elegant and graceful, shaping the most elite of femmes fatales. The planned Ballerina film reportedly revolved around a young woman trained as an assassin who tracks down the people that murdered her family. We see parallels to John’s tragedy, and exactly how the girls are transformed into weapons to be unleashed upon the world.
From John’s exchange, it’s clear the Director trains people, promising them the means to achieve revenge, and in return, they repay her by running errands and performing hits. With so many young women at her disposal, apart from focusing on one assassin, the Ballerina spinoff could deal with the origin of the program, how the Director founded it when she emigrated from Russia, and how it evolved to, effectively, release a bunch of female John Wicks out on the market.
The landscape shifts monumentally with Chapter 3, as the Director has been punished by the High Table for aiding John after he was deemed “excommunicado.” The High Table sends the Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon) to restore order in New York, and she has her lead assassin Zero (Mark Dacascos) plunge his sword through the Director’s hands to teach her a lesson and ruin her conducting abilities.
However, it’s obvious the Director still holds a hatred for the High Table, and while she painfully admitted she’s still in their service, given her twisted mother-son relationship with John, there’s a chance a spinoff could even follow her and her school as they wage war on the governing body of the criminal underworld.
The High Table established that it’s willing to exterminate the entire ballet if another infraction occurs. Therefore, there’s the opportunity for the Director to send an assassin to exact revenge in a way that would make John proud.
Directed by Chad Stahelski, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum stars Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne, Halle Berry, Jason Mantzoukas, Lance Reddick and Anjelica Huston.
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