Ana de Armas Is Locked and Loaded in Ballerina’s Final Tease

It’s been one hell of a long wait, but in just three weeks, fans of The Wickverse will finally get the chance to see From the World of John Wick: Ballerina for themselves. Ballerina, an Ana de Armas–led spin-off of the Keanu Reeves–starring franchise, has been locked in development hell for the last couple of years. But, finally, in May 2024, that’s all changed.

Lionsgate has lined up an official June 6, 2025, release date and in the intervening time has also given audiences a good look at the film with two trailers and a sneak peek at a (possibly-)significant part of de Armas’ training process. On June 3, in the final week before release, they’ve now given us one last look.

Ballerina opens with John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.

While Ballerina takes place over a shorter timescale and is focused on a different central character, the new film does take place in a strict temporal relation to the events of the wider John Wick saga.

Placing the film on the timeline, Parabellum was the third chapter in John Wick’s story, as well as being the third John Wick film. Released in 2019, that movie saw the Wickverse’s eponymous hero and his nemesis Santino D’Antonio (played by RZA) meet in combat on the grounds of the Continental Hotel. As a result of Wick’s actions, he was declared “excommunicado” by the High Table, placed under a multi-million-dollar bounty, and forced to flee the scene, pursued by a horde of killers.

He eventually makes it to the home base of the Ruska Roma crime syndicate. The organization is overseen by a character known only as the Director (played by Anjelica Huston), and it’s in the service of that mysterious crime boss that Wick first met his protégé Eve.

In Parabellum, a character we now know to be Eve Macarro (played by Unity Phelan) was glimpsed dancing on a stage as part of a larger sequence. That young ballerina’s part was small, but all of her fellow dancers are part of the Director’s deadly black-ops unit. The reclusive boss keeps a cadre of young girl assassins-in-training who call themselves the “ballerina-assassins.”

Those characters have now been given a new spin-off film of their own. Taking up an open slot in the scheduled timeline between Chapter 4 – Resurrection and Chapter 5, Ballerina is a story of revenge that places Ana de Armas in the role of that young dancer.

Familiar Faces in Familiar Places

Ballerina also benefits from having an impressive returning cast. Huston is back as the Director, while Ian McShane (Winston) and the late Lance Reddick (Charon) both reprise their roles in service of the Continental.

Reddick’s part is one of the most moving elements of this final trailer. Diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in early 2023, the actor — who took on the role of the Continental’s concierge in the second John Wick film — passed away in March 2023. To have what looks like an unfinished film role from the fourth chapter completed for his final appearance in the Wickverse will likely be a touching sight for his family, friends, and fans.

Round out the returning cast is a cohort of new characters. Gabriel Byrne plays the Chancellor, the antagonist of the film. Sharon Duncan-Brewster is Nogi, Eve’s mentor in her training as a ballerina-assassin. Norman Reedus also joins the cast as Daniel Pine, while Catalina Sandino Moreno and David Castañeda are also credited in the roles that they play.

In Action — and Action Packed

The first trailer for Ballerina dropped in September 2024 and emphasized Eve’s backstory and character motivation. Killed at a young age, Eve was orphaned and taken in by the Ruska Roma crime syndicate to train as one of the Director’s ballerina-assassins.

Her goal, at that point, was simple but powerfully emotional. Eve’s father was murdered in front of her, and she became the apprentice of a murderer to hunt down his killers and get her revenge.

It’s this mission that drives her, and it’s a goal that this trailer hammers home. The narrative hints at a close connection between Eve and John Wick in the same way as most other characters, but the emphasis seems to be on the former’s own story in her own right.

The second trailer, dropped in March 2025, gave audiences a little more of what they wanted. This trailer is less about Eve’s emotional journey and more about the broader story of the John Wick universe. Expectations were jolted with a surreal and heavily atmospheric meeting between Wick and Eve.

Visually interesting but tonally disjointed from the rest of the film, this teaser did suggest Wick will play a more important role in the narrativ,e as well as having some substantial screen time. He’s still a relatively unknown factor for the character of Eve, and a similar sense of mystery still hangs over their relationship.

Which brings us to the final trailer for Ballerina. More kinetic and fast-paced than the first, with a more overt action focus than the second, it promises to blend character-driven beats with action sequences of escalating scale and aggression.

To that end, it opens with a threat and ends with a violence-filled flourish of violence. The first image is of Eve looking up, the camera positioned in Wick’s cross-hairs. The last shot is de Armas’ as she dispatches her way through several highly-skilled and well-trained enemies.

The final teaser gives us more of a sense of the choreography and fight sequences than previous trailers have. And, where previous looks gave audiences a sense of the main character, the final trailer is about de Armas in the role and embracing the franchise’s aesthetic. The action is fast and stylized, alternating between hand-to-hand and gunplay at speed.