Why Ballerina Deserved Better: The John Wick Spinoff Fans Slept On

If you skipped Ballerina in theaters, you are about to get a quick second chance. The John Wick spinoff is sprinting to streaming way faster than I expected, and yes, that says a lot about how its theatrical run went.

Streaming, fast-tracked

Starz will premiere Ballerina on September 25. That is less than four months after it hit theaters on June 6 and just under three months after it went to VOD on July 1. Short window, aggressive pivot. With not much new arriving on the service right now, do not be surprised if it shoots to the top of the Starz charts.

• Theatrical release: June 6, 2025
• VOD release: July 1, 2025
• Streaming: Starz, September 25, 2025
• Box office: $137 million worldwide on a $90 million budget
• Runtime: 125 minutes
• Scores: 76% critics, 92% audience on Rotten Tomatoes (second-highest audience score in the franchise, just behind Chapter 4 at 93%)
• Director: Len Wiseman
• Writer: Shay Hatten
• Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Chad Stahelski, Erica Lee
• Cast highlights: Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston

So how did Ballerina actually do?

Box office-wise, not great. $137 million on a $90 million budget lands way too close for comfort. The movie itself, though? Not a flop creatively. Critics were decent on it, audiences were really into it, and in the John Wick world that second number matters. This one plays more like a crowd-pleaser that simply did not convert enough casuals in June.

What the movie is

Ana de Armas leads as a revenge-driven assassin raised in the Ruska Roma discipline. If you know your Wick lore, that is the ballet-meets-brutality training pipeline we have seen before. The setup is straightforward, the action is crisp, and the energy is very much in line with the mainline films.

"Ana de Armas plays a relentless young assassin from the Ruska Roma who sets out to hunt the people who destroyed her family, kicking off a survival fight fueled by grief, precision, and payback."

Also, quick reality check on expectations here: The Continental TV event series did not exactly light the world on fire. Ballerina lands somewhere better than that, and I would bet it will punch above its weight on streaming. That is a pattern for theatrical underperformers, and Starz is a friendly home for this kind of thing.

Where the Wick-verse goes next

The franchise is not slowing down. Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves are circling John Wick 5 for theaters, even after Chapter 4 gave John what felt like a very final curtain call. On top of that, there is an anime prequel lined up to arrive before the end of the year, and a spinoff built around Donnie Yen's blind assassin Caine is in development. So, even if Ballerina did not crush the box office, the larger machine keeps humming.

The inside baseball of it all

This quick hop to Starz is the tell. When a movie scores with audiences but misses its financial target, the studio leans on home platforms to finish the job. Expect Ballerina to get a second wind here, and later, when it eventually licenses out to a bigger streamer, a third. That is how the Wick world stays in shape between mainline chapters.