From the World of John Wick: Ballerina largely plays out between the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4.
In the movie, Ana de Armas' Eve is out for revenge. However, when her mission causes untold chaos in the underworld, John Wick is dispatched to get her to stand down by any means necessary (to prevent a war between the Ruska Roma and the Chancellor's cult).
Eve reasons with John and is given until midnight to finish her bloody crusade; they team up, the Chancellor dies by her hand, and Wick returns to the shadows, ready to accept his fate in Chapter 4.
In Ballerina's closing moments, a $5 million bounty is placed on Eve's head as she watches a ballet performance. Her mission is far from over, and the stage is set for this character's story to continue in a sequel.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly about where Eve goes from here, director Len Wiseman said, "She's checked herself into the Continental, and her next move is really sorting out how her whole life has been a lie. She now understands what her father was really doing for her, understands where she came from, and decided, 'I've made a choice. I've got the answers that I needed, but there are consequences in this world.'"
"She has to now deal with the consequences that John Wick laid out to her, that Winston [Ian McShane] laid out to her," the filmmaker replied when asked about a possible sequel. "It is a brutal world. You don't walk off into the sunset very easily. And so now Eve's next move is how to deal with the consequences of her actions in this [movie]."
Discussing the bounty that will force Eve to fend off all manner of killers, Wiseman teased, "The Chancellor relates to her at the ending that this cycle will continue: 'You kill me, you've cut the head of the snake, but the body still lives.' There will be ramifications of that. And she didn't kill the entire village."
Keanu Reeves making a cameo appearance as John Wick was perhaps inevitable, especially as Lionsgate was eager to increase interest in its first big screen spin-off. Addressing the decision to ultimately have the Baba Yaga lend Eve a helping hand, Wiseman said, "It comes down to John and what John has gone through in his life and what circumstances he's been put in at this point."
"And there's an understanding of how sometimes this life takes things from you. He was somebody that is having to deal with the consequences of the revenge path that he went on and what he had lost, and so it really is him seeing a bit of himself in her and how personal it is and what has been destroyed about her life," he concluded. "So he feels for her in that moment."
Ballerina has opened to a disappointing $51 million at the worldwide box office, so a sequel is far from a guarantee. The movie has time to make back its reported $90 million budget, though it will face stiff competition from How to Train Your Dragon this weekend.
Ballerina is now playing in theaters.