Lionsgate has won a bidding war to pick up a female-centric spec action script titled Ballerina that will serve as a platform for a possible John Wick spin-off.

Basil Iwanyk, whose Thunder Road banner is behind the hit Wick action franchise starring Keanu Reeves, will produce Ballerina.

While Lionsgate is relishing the idea of a franchise expansion, the screenwriter behind Ballerina is living out a Hollywood dream.

The deal marks the first sale for scribe Shay Hatten, the 23-year old who idolizes Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) and who is currently working as a writer's assistant for Robert Downey Jr.’s production company, Team Downey. Hatten has been on an upward Hollywood trajectory since graduating from Loyola Marymount’s School of Film and Television in 2016: He snagged an internship at Team Downey while writing a black comedy script, Maximum King!, in his spare time. The script led to representation at CAA and ended up on last year’s Black List and Blood List.

Hatten was then upped by Downey to writer's assistant, providing script notes and coverage on the company's many projects while tackling what would become Ballerina on nights and weekends.

Ballerina has been described as being in the vein of La Femme Nikita, the 1990s female-centric assassin movie that helped launch the career of filmmaker Luc Besson, but with a more pulpy, hyper-stylized bent a la Quentin Tarantino or Matthew Vaughn.

Details are being kept under the tutu, but the story is known to center on a young woman raised as an assassin who must hunt down the other assassins that murdered her family.

The script hit the studios last week with Warner Bros. and Universal also vying for it, according to sources. Lionsgate saw in it potential to further grow its Wick franchise (a third movie is now in the works).

Hatten’s Maximum King! is a black comedy that takes a fictional look at how in 1985 Stephen King wrote and directed his horror movie Maximum Overdrive. He is repped by CAA and Lee Stobby Entertainment.

Iwanyk is a producer on The Current War, the upcoming movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon that will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Also on his résumé is Wind River, the Jeremy Renner thriller that serves as the directorial debut of Hell or High Water writer Taylor Sheridan.

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate has set Len Wiseman to direct Ballerina, an action spinoff of the lucrative John Wick franchise.

Ballerina focuses on a young female assassin who seeks revenge against the people who killed her family. The picture is on a fast track, with a script by Shay Hatten, whose credits include the Zack Snyder-directed Army of the Dead for Netflix, and John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s one that’s sure to heat up the impending AFM. Knives Out and No Time To Die star Ana de Armas is in talks to take the lead role in anticipated John Wick spinoff Ballerina, about a young female assassin who seeks revenge against the people who killed her family.

The character made a fleeting appearance in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum as a ballerina who is also training to be an assassin.

As we previously revealed, Len Wiseman (Underworld) is aboard to direct the action-thriller, whose script comes from Shay Hatten, known for Zack Snyder’s Army Of The Dead and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.

The movie re-teams John Wick studio Lionsgate with producers Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee and Chad Stahelski (the John Wick franchise director will instead be a producer on Ballerina). We hear budget would be somewhere in the $50-80M range. It remains unclear whether Keanu Reeves will make a fleeting appearance in the movie, though there is a hope that he and Anjelica Huston may provide cameos.

De Armas’ star is high right now and there are multiple big-scale projects that could come together for her. The Golden Globe nominee is currently in post-production on Netflix and the Russo brothers’ $200M action pic The Gray Man, and the same studio’s long-awaited Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde.

Brady Fujikawa and Chelsea Kujawa are overseeing Ballerina for Lionsgate, whose international sales division is bringing a bumper crop of movies to the virtual American Film Market next week.

Among them are John Wick 4, which is still available in a handful of territories. The fourth installment in the lucrative Keanu Reeves franchise is due to be released next May.

Collider can exclusively reveal that Keanu Reeves is currently in Prague and set to reprise his role as John Wick in the John Wick spinoff film starring Ana de Armas. This exciting report comes on the heels of the announcement that the Ballerina film will also see Ian McShane return to the franchise as Winston, the manager of The Continental Hotel. It is not yet clear if Reeves' reprisal will be a cameo, or if he will have a larger part in the overarching plot of Ballerina.

Since the first John Wick film landed in theaters in 2014, the Chad Stahelski-helmed franchise has grown exponentially, with three additional films—including the highly anticipated John Wick 4—as well as two spinoff projects. Ballerina is currently filming in Prague, with Len Wiseman (Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard) directing the screenplay by Shay Hatten.

Anjelica Huston has pirouetted back into the world of John Wick, joining the cast of Ballerina, Lionsgate’s spinoff set in the world of the Keanu Reeves action franchise.

Production is already underway on the feature that is being toplined by Ana de Armas and directed by Len Wiseman.

Shay Hatten wrote the script and the plot involves a young woman (de Armas) with killer skills who uses said skills to get revenge when her family is killed by hitmen.

Huston is reprising her role as The Director, the head of the Ruska Roma crime organization. She appeared in John Wick 3 – Parabellum in a chewy scene with lines such as “You honor me by bringing death to my front door?” as beleaguered hitman Wick came to her for help. Among her skills is training young dancers to learn that art is suffering while also training young fighters to roll with the flips.