"The Continental" - John Wick, the TV show

This has been mentioned a bit in the thread for the John Wick movie series, but I thought it would be more appropriate to have its own subject now that there's some more information.

Back in January of this year, there was mention of a prequel TV show being considered.

Now after the sequel film blew away the box office take of the original, it's not just "considered", but Lionsgate is making it actually happen. The show is to be titled The Continental, after the hotel chain used to supply the various assassins, and may have some appearances of Keanu as Wick but isn't focused on him. Chad Stahelski, the director of JW2, is involved, but how much is up in the air at the moment given other calls on his time (including JW3).

edited 15th Jun '17 7:41:47 AM by Nohbody

That title cannot be real.

"The Continental" is the name of the Assassin Hotel in the first JW.

Like I said in the other thread, it's simultaneously full of potential and a dangerous gamble. If they don't have the Show, Don't Tell of the films it's doomed, if they don't have the highly stylish aesthetics it's also doomed.

I hope Derek Kolstad, the screenwriter of both films, is highly involved in this. I think he knows how to work this.

Still, I am excited.

It'd have to take a Monster of the Week approach to an extent... unless they go all "arc-y" - each week showcases the vignettes of a visiting Hitman going through their actions. They may not even have to show glitzy, sequential action setpieces - just a quick cut of a single scene, then cut back to the hotel and have the assassin turn back up looking a little bit battered - some smooth banter, then onwards.

Slick production values and a veneer of fancy-ness could work, though. Heck, even Ian Mc Shane cameoing would be brill.

There are a few actors who can be afforded on a tv budget. Ian Mcshane {see American Gods and Deadwood), Adrianne Palicki/Ms. Perkins (see Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Lance Reddick/Charon (see Fringe), Clarke Peters/Harry (see Person of Interest), Common/Cassian (Hell on Wheels), Ruby Rose/Ares (Orange Is the New Black) and a lot of the lesser actors-stuntmen could come back.

I like the idea of a show with a revolving door cast, a protagonist per episode.

It's not REALLY been done. Tv execs want continuity and a cast they can sell the show on. Supernatural had a pretty good rotating cast until they decided that Dean / Sam / Cas needed to be a perm thing (The boys having a few episodes out of the limelight was a good idea at times)

The core cast being the non-super-powered Continental staff would be good. You could have some good comedic moments from the cleanup crew (A la Dexter); some good thriller stuff from the intel gatherers.

Then the assassin shows up, does their slick work as the finale to the episode, after all the initialwork's been done.

Yeah. Perhaps they could do a Genre Anthology thing allá a action-crime take on Tales From The Crypt, with Charon, Winston or Charlie (the guy who leans up corpses) telling the audience about random single episode assassin stories that occasionally involve one-shot characters and occasionally fellow characters of the movies like Ms. Perkins, Ares, Cassian, Kiril and even random characters like Violin Lady and Sumo Guy.

You could have the season finales involve John Wick to truly cap it off with gold.

The Continental is now confirmed to be on Starz.

Well, I've never heard of them, but that's probably due to everything premium here being done through satellite TV instead of cable.

They’re also producing Ash vs. Evil Dead.

This could be a tough one to do right, but yeah, an anthology makes perfect sense.

Yeah, self contained episodes with the Continental narrator would probably fit. You could still even have a subtle arc running in the background. Or have Wick cameo every now and then.

A series with set characters could suffer as it becomes too ensemble focused. The Punisher has shown you can make Anti heroes relatable to a point, but a whole cast of assassins may be trickier to pull off. (Though Kill Joys has done quite well with bounty hunters)

I'm actually getting excited for this now. Maybe it's just because I haven't made a dent in my Netflix Queue, and I've abandoned most of my superhero shows but - this show sounds promising.

The latest trailer is here:

Weird decision to give Mel Gibson work.

Not really, he's been working pretty steadily behind and in front of the camera for the last decade.

He hasn't been "canceled" for a while now.

Further distressing to let the raging antisemite get more work. Eitherway, enough to give the show a definite skip if they cast him.

I remember Some More News citing Mel Gibson as one of the examples that prove how "Cancel Culture" isn't really a thing.

I mean there was a good six years or so where he was more or less unemployable. But around the time of Hacksaw Ridge, his cachet had been more or less fully restored.

Either way the show looks pretty good, Gibson or not.

I honestly don't care about Mel Gibson, yeah he's controversial but it's not like he's affecting this show by being there. I'm more excited about how this prequel played out especially when we're going to see more of Winston's backstory and I'm interested of some characters like The (first?) Adjudicator and the creepy duo Hansel and Gretel.

Edited by Bubblepig on Aug 11th 2023 at 12:18:02 PM

Mel Gibson being here honestly doesn’t bother me. After all, this is the John Wick franchise, his character dying violently is a pretty likely outcome.

What do you guys think of the first episode? I thought it was good for me so far but I'm sad that we won't see Winston's brother Frankie again after he died, he is such a badass character. Also, I can't wait to see more of the masked lady.

I liked the first episode. I'm certainly intrigued to see more of Charon and what his motives are. If he's a personal follower of Cormac who switches sides somehow or an absolute believer in The Rules of The Continental and whoever is in charge of it, etc.

The whole show is done, What's your guys' thought?

I think Cormac dying at the hands of KD does nicely reflect on something he said in his first scene: "Imagine me walking out these doors, you know, alive... but suddenly unprotected from all the people that I've hurt over the last 40 years." Sure enough, he died unprotected, since Charon turned on him to aid Winston's crew, and every last one of Cormac's loyalists had been cut down.

I watched the continental with my dad and while my dad didn’t care for it that much, I enjoyed it quite a bit