Warning! Major spoilers ahead for Ballerina. From the World of John Wick: Ballerina director Len Wiseman shares his theory about who put the contract on Ana de Armas’ Eve Macarro at the end of the movie. The latest installment in the John Wick franchise follows Eve as she seeks for revenge for the murder of her father. The Ballerina ending sees Eve accomplish her mission, killing the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne) in Hallstatt, but she’s not out of the woods yet. Just before the credits roll, Eve sees on her phone that there’s a large contract on her head, but it’s not clear who placed the hit.

In a recent interview with EW, Wiseman comments on this ambiguous Ballerina ending, revealing that he thinks a specific figure from Eve’s past could be responsible for the contract. According to the director, an early draft of the script had Eve interacting more with her Cultist mother, who, in the movie, is revealed to have died before the events of the main story. Wiseman explains that if Eve’s mother is alive, she could have placed the hit after seeing the devastation in Hallstatt and learning of Lena’s (Catalina Sandino Moreno) death. Check out his comment below:

“At one point I had [in the script] that she meets her mother, and we never got there. We were maybe going to shoot the scene, but that’s always something that we hear, her mother’s ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, but in this world, you never know who’s really ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. There was an element of, when Eve does get the contract on her at the end, we don’t necessarily know for sure who put that contract on her. And if that path led to that, maybe her own mother [put the hit on her]. That would be brutal.

[…]

“Her mother still will need to return to that village and see it decimated, and her daughter has been killed. So the ramifications can come in many different forms.”

Though audiences don’t get to meet Eve’s mother in the film, Wiseman has hopes that his “full fantasy wish” for this storyline will eventually come to fruition.

What This Means For Ballerina

Will The John Wick Spinoff Get A Sequel?

It’s too early to say whether Ballerina 2 will happen, but the ending to the first film definitely leaves the door open for more story with Eve. Wiseman, in a separate interview with USA Today, reveals that the bounty of Eve’s head at the end of the movie was actually “a Keanu [Reeves] idea,” and one that fits into “the spirit of the consequences behind this world.” He goes on to say that, though “it’s ambiguous who put that contract out,” he has “fun, really dark ideas,” about who it is, further speaking to his plans for Eve’s mother.

The early response to the John Wick spinoff bodes well for a sequel. In her Ballerina review for ScreenRant, Rachel Labonte awards the film a lukewarm six out of 10, but the film does hold a more respectable 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Popcornmeter score, however, is a stunning 94%, making it the highest-rated John Wick movie yet with audiences. It will be box office that determines whether Eve’s story continues, but the Popcornmeter score could suggest strong legs in the weeks ahead.

Our Take On Wiseman’s Ballerina 2 Tease

How Eve’s Mother Could Upgrade The Sequel

A major part of the John Wick sequels is that Reeves’ character is constantly fending off ᴀssᴀssins as the bounty on his head increases. The Ballerina ending tees Eve up for a similar predicament, but the fact that her own mother may have been the one to place the bounty could open the door for a more emotional story moving forward. This is not a franchise that spends too much time on emotion, but Ballerina 2 now has a chance to go deeper into a key Eve relationship.

If a sequel can deliver the same high-octane action while also offering up a more compelling, human story at the center, it has the potential to be one of the best John Wick movies yet. Though the possibility exists for Eve and her mother to make peace with each other, previous entries in the franchise have proven that happy endings are a rarity in this universe. It remains to be seen whether Wiseman will get to bring his Ballerina fantasy to life, but there evidently could be a lot more to Eve’s story.

Source: EW