Update: This past week, it was being said by sources close to Ballerina that John Wick director, Chad Stahelski, reshot most of the film without the original director, Len Wiseman. The production is now saying those claims are inaccurate. According to them (who contacted us directly), director Len Wiseman led the additional photography on set in Budapest with producer Chad Stahelski there to help in the creation of action design on the new scenes that would enhance the film and create bigger action sequences. As per usual procedure on films, Ballerina‘s reshoots were not out of the ordinary, and the process had taken place in less than a month.
According to our source, Chad Stahelski’s involvement in building upon key action sequences was important to Wiseman; Stahelski has been an enormous champion of Wiseman from the onset of pre-production and Wiseman is equally appreciative of Stahelski’s support as one of the architects of the John Wick universe. However, during the additional shooting, Wiseman had suffered a serious health issue and was briefly hospitalized. Stahelski covered Wiseman’s scenes during that time. Wiseman would fully recover and had been back finishing the film alongside producer Chad Stahelski, Thunder Road, and the full filmmaking team
Original article:
News of the extensive reshoots for Ballerina has been at the forefront of the film’s hype since the John Wick spin-off had been delayed a year to revamp the footage that Lionsgate was not satisfied with. Earlier this year, Ian McShane, who is a staple of the Wick films and reprises his role as Winston for Ballerina, explained that the reshoots were so extensive that he even gave it the term, “new shoots.” “They’re new-shooting for Ballerina.” Then, he continues, “You know, it’s like, they’ve gotta protect the franchise. We did it about a year ago. And they’ve looked at it and Chad’s come in. And they wanna make it better cause they have to protect [the franchise].”
It was conveyed that Wick franchise director Chad Stahelski was brought in to work with Ballerina director Len Wiseman for the new shoots. Now, according to The Wrap, multiple sources have revealed that Stahelski had re-shot most of the movie and the former director was not at all present. The new shoots had reportedly taken place in Prague for two to three months without Wiseman. One of the sources explained, “Of course, Chad had to clean up someone else’s mess. Remember, this film is basically John Wick 3.5. This story happens before John Wick 4 and after that film, they can’t have a failure in anything ‘Wick’ related.”
The source added, “Chad is going to do Highlander, but cleaning up Ballerina pushed him by five months for sure.” Stahelski was set to work on Highlander with Henry Cavill, but the delay would free him up to accept a role in Voltron from Amazon MGM. That project goes into production later this year while it is being said that more work will be done to the Highlander script.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated situation for the studio Lionsgate, as the film Borderlands would also bring in Deadpool director Tim Miller to take over duties from former director Eli Roth. A lot is riding on Ballerina to save the studio from a disastrous 2024 after suffering flops like the aforementioned Borderlands as well as The Killer’s Game, The Crow remake and their major gamble with Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis.