Ballerina, a spinoff set in the John Wick universe, was supposed to be coming out in June. However, Lionsgate bumped the Ana De Armas-led action movie by a whole year.
And thanks to Wick mainstay Ian McShane, we now know why.
Appearing on the BBC chat program The One Show, McShane spilled that the movie apparently wasn’t up to snuff and “not reshoots, but new shoots” were ordered by Wick series director Chad Stahelski, producer of the Len Wiseman-directed film.
The interview has yet to be available on the network’s website, but a Twitter user posted the conversation.
“You know, it’s like they’ve got to protect the franchise,” explained the actor, who plays The Continental’s manager Winston Scott in the Wick films.
“We did [Ballerina] about a year ago … and Chad’s come in, the guy who directed all the John Wick movies, and they want to make it better. Because they have to protect it.”
McShane also revealed that the Man in Black himself, Keanu Reeves, also appears in the movie, as Ballerina “takes place between John Wick 3 and John Wick 4.”
And incidentally, while McShane seemed to regard Ballerina kindly, he didn’t have much to say about The Continental, the prequel series about his character’s younger days.
McShane seemed to recoil when One Show co-host Ant McPartlin mentioned he’d watched it. McShane, however, did not. “Why would I?” he asked.
“They never asked anybody about it. They just went and did it,” he continued. “Somebody asked Keanu and me about it. We both went, ‘I don’t know. Nobody ever asked us about it."”
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