Ballerina director says it was important that the new John Wick movie's action scenes "make you go, 'Okay, well, I haven't seen that [before]"

The John Wick scenes are synonymous with innovative action scenes, and new movie Ballerina is no different.

Ana de Armas plays Eve, a member of the Ruska Roma organization that we get a peek of in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and an assassin just starting out on her path to blood, money, and, of course, revenge.

Ballerina moves away from the "gun-fu" style that the Wick franchise has become known for, though, and adopts a slightly different approach to its fight scenes. There are several that make ingenious use of their characters' surroundings, including a restaurant sequence with a hell of a lot of crockery clean-up and a particularly brutal use of a pair of ice skates.

"I'll build a lot of stuff, either in miniatures or shoot it with action figures and shoot it at a stage in my garage," director Len Wiseman explains to GamesRadar+. "I'll [ask], 'What would be fun to use as a weapon?', and then start to design and put them into the scene, work with the stunt team. 'Hey, I have this idea of, like, skates or putting a knife to a gun, and let's do 17, 18, 20 moves with that, and what would that look like?'"

He says that it's important to have scenes that "make you go, 'Okay, well, I haven't seen that [before].' We really wanted to make it, when we were talking early on, that she's not supported with a lot of artillery and weapons. It's like survival mode. What can you grab and use and make?"

De Armas thinks these scenes give us a better understanding of Eve's character and her resourcefulness despite her inexperience. "You assume that all assassins have been trained to use real weapons, so it's like, what she can do with everything that she has around [her]," she tells us.

"It speaks more about her, who she is, her character, how she's able to be so sharp and so quick in crazy situations and just come up with an exit and something really cool to kill people with."

Ballerina arrives in theaters on June 6. For more, fill out your watchlist with our guide to the other best upcoming movies still to come in 2025.