Everyone is having a lot of fun in the first Ballerina trailer

The first trailer for Ballerina is making the case that the John Wick franchise hasn’t yet lost any of its juice as it expands past its titular assassin. At least based on this trailer, the upcoming film will still be a zany, no-holds barred murder fest, featuring some of the more colorful assassination techniques ever put to screen, all pulled off by a stoic protagonist of very few words. In other words, it’s a John Wick film. 

Our new death machine is Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), an orphan scooped up by Winston Scott (Ian McShane, reprising his role from the original franchise) and brought to study ancient murder traditions under the Ruska Roma criminal underbelly. Here, she becomes some kind of dancer/assassin on a vague mission to avenge her father. This seems like it will basically be the entire plot of the movie, but who cares! De Armas is stabbing and shooting people to the beat of a slowed-down version of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.” (Y’know, because the song says “ballerina” in it. Duh.) There’s a sick battle between a dude with a flame-thrower and de Armas with a firehose. Everything is as tightly choreographed as Swan Lake. It’s awesome.

Ballerina is set between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4. That means that [SPOILER ALERT] despite being killed off at the end of the last movie, Keanu Reeves is putting the suit back on to serve as a seeming mentor to Eve. It’s not clear exactly how much of a presence Reeves will have in the film, but it’s nice to see him regardless.

Reeves, de Armas, and McShane will be joined by an equally star-studded supporting cast including Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Lance Reddick, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Norman Reedus. Ballerina premieres in theaters June 6, 2025.