Why Ballerina Will Succeed Where WOKE Films Fail

Anticipation is building for Ballerina, the newest installment in the John Wick universe, and all signs point toward a major box office success. But this film isn’t just another spinoff—it’s a cultural counterpunch. If it performs as expected, it will shatter the persistent narrative that audiences are unwilling to support movies led by women. In truth, moviegoers aren't rejecting women—they’re rejecting lazy, ideological storytelling.

The John Wick Legacy: A Model of Respectful Expansion

The John Wick franchise earned its place among modern action legends through brutal elegance, deep lore, and stylistic confidence. Keanu Reeves brought emotional depth to a role that could have easily been one-note. The films respected their audience by focusing on story, aesthetics, and world-building rather than political messaging.

Now, Ballerina enters that universe, not to overwrite it, but to expand it. Ana de Armas takes the lead as a character introduced briefly in John Wick: Chapter 3, and now steps into a world already built, ready to carve out her own narrative. This isn’t a re-skinning of John Wick with a female actor—it’s an original arc that exists alongside what came before.

Audiences Want Female Leads—When They’re Earned

For years, critics and culture warriors have insisted that audiences are misogynist when female-led films flop. But history tells a different story. Films like Alien, Terminator 2, and Atomic Blonde thrived because they didn’t insult the viewer's intelligence. They offered compelling, competent characters with meaningful stakes and real development. People loved them not because they checked boxes, but because they were good stories.

Ballerina is poised to join that lineage. Ana de Armas’ character doesn’t need to scream empowerment slogans—her actions will speak for her. She fits into the violent ballet of the Wick world organically, without the audience being scolded or shamed into caring.

The Failure of WOKE Franchise Hijacking

WOKE Hollywood has repeatedly taken beloved franchises and twisted them into unrecognizable forms under the guise of “progress.” Instead of building new worlds and characters, they’ve resorted to race-swapping, gender-flipping, and gutting established mythologies. The result? Box office bombs, fan backlash, and franchise fatigue.

Ghostbusters (2016), The Marvels, She-Hulk—these projects didn’t fail because they had women. They failed because they were written with an agenda, not an audience. The stories treated identity politics as a selling point and substituted moral lecturing for entertainment.

What these productions misunderstood is that people don’t go to the movies for lessons. They go for stories.

Ballerina Gets It Right

What sets Ballerina apart is that it doesn’t try to hijack its source material. It doesn’t erase male characters or legacy stories. It stands on its own. The lead character is not a gender-swapped version of John Wick. She is her own person, with her own story, her own pain, and her own reasons for vengeance.

This is what audiences have been asking for all along: originality, not tokenism. Respect for lore, not cultural reprogramming. Ballerina will resonate not because it features a woman, but because it respects the intelligence and desires of the people watching it.

The Verdict

When Ballerina succeeds—and it likely will—it will be a resounding rejection of the idea that audiences hate female-led films. It will prove that moviegoers crave good storytelling, not virtue signals. It will remind Hollywood that inclusion doesn’t work when it’s forced, only when it’s earned.