Rina Sawayama Opens Up About 'John Wick 4' Role, Queer Rights, Asian Storylines in Cinema & Facing Stereotypes in 'Allure' Interview

Ana de Armas is continuing to cement her status as a bona fide action superstar. She's starring as a secret agent in the forthcoming film , then she's entering the gun-blazing world of the universe in the forthcoming spin-off, Ballerina.The Oscar-nominated actress walked the red carpet at the premiere at the AMC Lincoln Square Theater in New York City on Tuesday and spoke with ET about her hotly anticipated role in «That is gonna be really another level,» de Armas teased.

The John Wick prequel series is here!

stars Mel Gibson — though he is absent from the 45-second trailer — Colin Woodell, Mishel Prada, but not John Wick himself, Keanu Reeves. Woodell portrays Winston Scott in “The Continental” who is a young version of the Continental Hotel owner played by Ian McShane in the Reeves films.

John Wick spin-off prequel series The Continental has arrived – check it out below.The series was first teased in 2017, and was confirmed to be a prequel to the Keanu Reeves-starring movie series, with set “way back in terms of timing of the movies.”Ahead of its September 2023 release date on the Peacock streaming service, the first trailer has arrived for the show.A synopsis for The Continental reads: “The three-part event series will explore the origin behind the iconic hotel-for-assassins centerpiece of the John Wick universe through the eyes and actions of a young Winston Scott, as he’s dragged into the Hell-scape of 1970’s New York City to face a past he thought he’d left behind.“Winston charts a deadly course through the hotel’s mysterious underworld in a harrowing attempt to seize the hotel where he will eventually take his future throne.”Watch the trailer below.Speaking about the show’s premise, Lionsgate chairman Kevin Beggs explained: “What we’re exploring in The Continental is the young Winston and how it came to be that he and his team of confederates found their way into this hotel which we have met for the first time in the movie franchise 40 years later. That’s the arena.“I won’t give away more than that, but Starz really leaned into this take also, and they have been great collaborators.

Mel Gibson and Colin Woodell lead the cast for the three-part prequel series, , which will premiere in September on Peacock, it was announced Wednesday. The upcoming series explores the origins behind the hotel for assassins at the center of the franchise and is told through the eyes of young Winston Scott (Woodell) as he's dragged into the hell-scape of 1970s New York City to face a past he thought he left behind. Winston charts a deadly course through the hotel's mysterious underworld in a harrowing attempt to seize the hotel where he will eventually take his future throne.Woodell plays a younger version of the character portrayed by Ian McShane in the  movies, and he's not the only cast member taking on a familiar role to fans of the franchise.

As “John Wick: Chapter 4” continues its run in theaters, with over $306.6 million made at the box office, it’s time to start considering the franchise’s future. Will Keanu Reeves ever return to Chad Stahelski‘s series? Both actor and director are cagey in answering that question.

SZA has been announced as the latest headliner set to appear at the 2023 Open’er festival, which will take place in Poland this summer.The long-running festival will be held at Gdynia-Kosakowo Airport in Gdynia and will run from June 28 to July 1.The singer-songwriter – whose real name is Solána Imani Rowe – will perform on the second night of the festival (June 29), in the headline slot. She also joins other previously announced headliners at the four-day stint – including a co-headline set with Lil Nas X and Lizzo on June 28, and Kendrick Lamar, who will close the festival with his performance on July 1.Arctic Monkeys were the first leading act to be added to the bill.

It’s undeniable that Keanu Reeves, director Chad Stahelski and screenwriter/creator Derek Kolstad have put together one hell of a crowd-pleasing action franchise with the quadrilogy of “John Wick” films that keep turning out to be financial successes for Lionsgate. As the prospect of “John Wick 5” is less clear despite the strong box office returns of the recent installment, they are going to keep fans happy with a handful of spinoffs on the way, including the series prequel “The Continental” that is expected to debut this September and a feature film starring Ana de Armas as Rooney, an assassin/ballerina from Wick’s criminal syndicate (The Ruska Roma) looking for revenge after hitmen kill her family.

Lionsgate’s John Wick spinoff The Ballerina will be hitting theaters on June 7, 2024.

In just two weekends, “John Wick: Chapter 4” has outgrossed the domestic totals for the first two films in the franchise and is more than halfway to passing ‘Chapter 3.’ That is to say, ‘Chapter 4’ is already a massive success, and the “John Wick” franchise is stronger than ever before. Even still, a fifth film doesn’t seem to be a given, according to director Chad Stahelski.

“John Wick: Chapter 4” is here. And it is blowing everybody away, as is evidenced by its bone-crunching, franchise-best $70 million+ opening weekend.There’s a reason for its oversized success; in the fourth entry of the franchise that follows disaffected assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) as he traverses a vast network of underworld weirdos with mythological overtones, the movie takes on a grander, more elegant expanse.

Keanu Reeves gifted stunt crew on John Wick: Chapter 4 t-shirts bearing the amount of times they died in the movie.According to The New York Times, Reeves gave out the shirts at the end of the shoot, which were “emblazoned with the number of times they were slain” throughout the blockbuster. It’s said for some of the crew, the number was above 20.Many of the stuntmen in John Wick: Chapter 4 were re-used in multiple scenes.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Lollapalooza may boast the most star-studded lineup out of all the music festivals slated for the rest of 2023. So if you haven’t snagged your tickets, you’ll want to act fast before they sell out. The four-day festival, which takes place at Chicago’s Grant Park from Aug. 3-6, features headlining acts by Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Odesza, Lana Del Rey, Karol G, The 1975 and Tomorrow x Together. This jam-packed lineup, released earlier this month, also includes Fred again, Noah Kahan, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, J.I.D., Maggie Rogers, Carly Rae Jepsen, Diplo, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Tems, the Rose, Rina Sawayama, Lil Yachty, Rema, Morgan Wade, Lainey Wilson, L’Impératrice, Ivan Cornejo, Sudan Archives, and many others (see the full 170-plus-artist lineup here). The festival, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2021, will take place across nine stages from Thursday through Sunday.

Rina Sawayama has announced an upcoming North American tour kicking off this June.The ‘This Hell’ singer took to social media on Tuesday (March 28), confirming that the Hold The Girl Reloaded tour will see her perform 12 shows between June 9 and October 9. The run will include festival sets as well as headlining concerts.Check out the complete list of tour dates below.A post shared by Rina Sawayama (@rinasonline)Pre-sale tickets will go sale today (March 29) at 10am local time, while general tickets go on sale on Friday (March 31) at 10am local time.

John Wick: Chapter 4.The film was released in the UK last week (March 24), and is the fourth instalment to the action-packed John Wick franchise.Following its release, many fans have noticed a cameo from the iconic Berghain bouncer, who appears several times throughout the film and has just one line: “I am Klaus”.The premise behind the fourth edition of the series follows the title character, as he attempts to take on the aristocratic crime barons who sit at The High Table’ – travelling across the world to do so. From there, the impeccably-dressed assassin heads to iconic locations including Paris, New York and Berlin, where he meets Marquardt.Here, his character is an associate of Wick and helps the title character to locate a villainous character whom he’s instructed to assassinate.

When you talk about the “John Wick” film (and soon-to-be TV) franchise, it’s hard not to understate the success it has experienced. Each of the first three films has nearly doubled the worldwide gross of the previous, and the most recent, “John Wick: Chapter 4” just had an opening weekend that is better than any of the previous films.

“John Wick: Chapter 4” is officially the most successful film in the franchise.

“John Wick 4” is bringing heat to the box office.

Keanu Reeves is admitting that the action in the "John Wick" franchise is a dangerous and exhausting business. "Well I mean everyone is pretty tired – but it's the best kind of tired. It's like you climbed a mountain now you're resting; like you finished the game and you won," Reeves told ComicBook.com.

Rina Sawayama has made her feature acting debut as Akira in John Wick: Chapter 4.Directed by Chad Stahelski, the sequel is the longest and arguably most ambitious entry in the franchise yet – with bigger action sequences and an expanded cast.Speaking to NME, Stahelski explained that he contacted Sawayama after seeing her music videos. “I knew very little about her beforehand,” the director said.