It's almost ten years after the project was first developed that Ballerina is finally seeing the light of day on our screens. A decade that has seen John Wick multiply films, launch a series, cancel a series, and seemingly return from the dead. This hasn't stopped its first official spin-off from making its way, with all the complications that surround a production of this caliber. For example, a significant additional filming phase, supervised by Chad Stahelski himself, and, as a direct consequence, a postponed release date.
But this time, we're here! Ballerina is coming to theaters, and who better to talk about it than the man who had the difficult task of taking over the camera under Stahelski's approval, Len Wiseman? A director who made a name for himself with the Underworld saga in the early 2000s before signing the fourth installment of the Die Hard franchise or even a new version of Total Recall.
“We never went there in John Wick, but it has the spirit”
And if the filmmaker quickly sold us on the privilege of participating in the franchise, having accepted the mission immediately, he does not hide the fact that the first challenge was to ensure that the “tone is respected, that the created universe remains intact”. It must be said that in four feature films, Stahelski and his screenwriters, including Shay Hattenq, who also wrote the script for Ballerina, have fleshed out a whole universe around the world of assassins, the Continental, the Grande Table and the different houses.
It is also in the heart of Ruska Roma that the story of Ballerina takes place, a part of the mythology whose layers Wiseman loved to “explore” in order to develop the universe on his own. “We had to be careful about what should be there, what shouldn’t be there, while remaining faithful to the world and the tone. It was imperative that this new territory remain consistent with the universe.”
Respecting the guidelines, while being able to exploit the margins, that’s what convinced Wiseman to take on the challenge, this “freedom to take the audience on a different, crazy, completely delirious journey”. To say that “we never went there in John Wick, but it has the spirit”. We’re not going to hide it, and if you’ve read our review, you know that it’s perhaps this respect for the universe that stifled a good part of the film…
As proof, Len Wiseman himself admits that he would never have accepted the job if his idea had been “to turn everything upside down”. “I’m part of this project because I love this universe and I want to expand it. It’s a completely new adventure, but in a world where fans will say, ‘Yes, this is the universe I love.’”
“If you’re not ready for challenges, then you shouldn’t take this job.”
Regardless of the final outcome, there’s no denying that Len Wiseman had a lot of fun on set, and the pressure of entering the Johnwickverse, while present, was also what was exciting. For someone who had the heavy responsibility of resurrecting the Die Hard saga years after A Day in Hell, it must be said that it was never the kind of obstacle that scared him. The filmmaker is driven by a passion for his craft, a job he's dreamed of doing since he was 14.
“As directors, we all draw inspiration from each other”
As we talked about it in our article on Ballerina, the face of action cinema has changed a lot since the arrival of John Wick on the scene. For someone who has been immersed in this cinema since the early 2000s, the question remained of how he had received these changes over time.
And it must be recognized that, for Wiseman, the face of the genre has not undergone any profound modifications, himself admitting to having been inspired by his predecessors for Underworld, just as John Wick did as well. "I think that we, directors, all inspire each other. There are a lot of influences in the Wick universe." Not entirely unexplored territory, then, since he appreciated seeing things inspired by Underworld following it. "It's a cycle that continues today." It remains to be seen whether Ballerina will inspire other films in turn...
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