No Time To Die Star Ana de Armas In Talks To Lead John Wick Spin-off Ballerina

After a film stealing performance as Paloma in No Time To Die, Ana de Armas is in talks to lead the John Wick spin-off Ballerina for Lionsgate.

The film will be about a young female assassin seeking revenge against the people who killed her family. We saw the character made the briefest appearance in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum as a ballerina training to an assassin.

So judging by the plot and the fact she’s still in assassin school and will be inexperienced in the real world and how to take a life.

In many ways, it’ll have a similar vibe as the Blake Lively starring The Rhythm Section.

Deadline (who broke the story) confirmed Len Wiseman (Underworld) will be directing the action-thriller with the script by Shay Hatton, who wrote John Wick: Chapter 3 and Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead.

The team behind John Wick, Chad Stahelski, Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee, will be producing the spin-off with a budget around the $50-80 million mark.

Question marks remain whether Keanu Reeves and Anjelica Huston will make cameos, but the studio hopes they both appear.

This project has the potential of being a massive success, not only because it’s a spin-off of a popular franchise and will De Armas is a star at the highest. Not only appearing in the latest James Bond adventure and received a Golden Globe nomination for her terrific performance in Knives Out.

Meanwhile, the Cuban actress is staying in the action genre starring in the Russo brothers’ $200m movie The Grey Man for Netflix. The studio is releasing the long-awaited Marilyn Monroe biopic, Blonde.

The project had me excited already as we need more awesome female-led action films but getting de Armas, especially off the back of her starring role in No Time To Die to the point I wouldn’t mind seeing Paloma return for her own spin-off as that Cuba sequence is the best of Craig’s era.

Finally, I think this is the start of a busy film news period as next week is the American Film Market where studios and productions companies try to secure deals for their projects.