Over the past couple of months we’ve heard of several female-led action thrillers being snapped up as potential “female John Wick” movies – see Ruthless and Peppermint, for example – and now Lionsgate has got itself in on the act, only this time it may literally be a “female John Wick” movie.
According to THR, Lionsgate has won a bidding war for Shay Hatten’s screenplay Ballerina, which is said to be in the vein of Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita but with “a more pulpy, hyper-stylized bent a la Quentin Tarantino or Matthew Vaughn.” Although plot details are being kept under wraps, it reportedly revolves around a young woman raised as an assassin who must hunt down the other assassins that murdered her family.
While Warner Bros. and Universal were also said to be interested, Lionsgate nabbed the script, viewing it as a potential platform for a John Wick spinoff set in the same universe. It will be produced by Basil Iwanyk, whose production company Thunder Road is behind the Keanu Reeves action franchise.
Lionsgate is also prepping John Wick: Chapter 3, which could potentially shoot this year, while a spinoff TV series entitled The Continental is also in development.
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