Len Wiseman Will Direct The JOHN WICK Spin-Off

Over two years ago, we learned that Lionsgate was moving forward with a John Wick spin-off by the name of Ballerina. Described at the time as a "female-driven spy thriller", the film was to be written by Shay Hatten, an up-and-coming screenwriter best known for Maximum King, the darkly hilarious script Hatten wrote about the making of Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive (if you can find it, definitely read it).

Well, we've not heard much on Ballerina in the time since, but some folks did notice that this year's John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum featured a number of ballerinas, in a sequence that was clearly laying the groundwork for whatever Lionsgate and company had planned for the project.

Today, though, we're getting our first real update on the film in quite some time: Len Wiseman (director of the Underworld films and, hoo boy, Live Free or Die Hard) has been brought on to direct Ballerina, from Hatten's script. As of this writing, there's no casting news to share or a projected release date to point towards, but if I were a betting man I'd guess that we'll see Ballerina before we see John Wick: Chapter 4, which Lionsgate is also currently working on.

We're gonna take a "wait and see" approach to all this before firing off any hard opinions. You are under no obligation to follow suit, however, and we encourage you to sound off in the comments below with your takes: happy this one's going forward? How do you feel about Wiseman being involved? Did you ever have a chance to read Maximum King? Let us know, and stay tuned for more on Ballerina as further updates roll in.