Release Date, Cast & Everything We Know About The John Wick Prequel

The upcoming The Continental John Wick prequel spinoff — fully titled The Continental: From The World Of John Wick — is generating serious buzz, and it’s shaping up to be the perfect prologue to the John Wick series. The John Wick franchise has built an expansive world with an underbelly of assassins living under the reign of the High Table, and John Wick: Chapter 4 expanded the universe even further, including hinting at a much deeper backstory about the Continental’s manager, Winston (played by Ian McShane in the movies and Colin Woodell in the series). Though the ending of John Wick 4 could have been definitive, there are instead many plans for more projects in John Wick’s world, with The Continental: From The World Of John Wick easily being one of the most anticipated.

The Continental is named after the Continental hotel chain that serves as a one-stop-shop for anything a member of the criminal underground needs in John Wick. First announced in 2017, The Continental TV series will be a spinoff that serves as a prequel to the main John Wick movie timeline, and will show more of the franchise’s world beyond the central story of John Wick himself. Kirk Ward and Greg Coolidge will act as showrunners for the upcoming series, with the franchise’s director Chad Stahelski and screenwriter Derek Kolstad also executive producing. Lots of information about The Continental John Wick spinoff has already been revealed, including its cast, release date, and teaser trailer.

Related: How John Wick 3 Sets Up The Continental TV Show

The Continental: Most Recent John Wick Prequel News

The most recent news on The Continental’s John Wick prequel spinoff has been from Lionsgate’s panel at San Diego Comic-Con, wherein both the release date and some early footage were revealed — although, unfortunately, The Continental SDCC preview isn’t available for viewing online. The Continental headlined Lionsgate’s panels at the event, and John Wick fans attending SDCC 2023 were able to catch The Continental’s panel on Friday, July 21. Giving the franchise pride-of-place on their SDDC panel shows just how important The Continental is for Lionsgate — especially since many of Lionsgate’s movies, including the John Wick spinoff Ballerina, weren’t presented at SDCC this year.

It’s a smart move in many ways too, as The Continental will have a lot of breathing room at this year’s event. Many studios aren’t sending casts, panels, or new footage to SDCC 2023. Various industry powerhouses including Marvel, Sony, and Universal, are opting to sit out of the convention in the wake of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike and the ongoing SAG-AFTRA walkout. There have been significantly fewer movies and TV panels as a result, putting a lot of interest in offerings like The Continental.

The Continental Release Date

Even though John Wick: Chapter 4 was delayed by almost a whole year, the fourquel’s follow-up will be available just six months after John Wick: Chapter 4’s premiere. Having moved from Starz to Peacock, The Continental release date is set for Friday, September 22, 2023. The premier episode is titled “Night 1”, and will be followed by “Night 2” on September 29, and “Night 3” on October 6. While the three-episode format isn’t perhaps the extended binge-length season some were hoping for, putting The Continental out as a miniseries promises a contained narrative.

This is incredibly beneficial for the sleek and stylish world of John Wick, as creating a perpetually ongoing TV spinoff would risk overexposing the intriguing and mysterious underworld the hotel serves and oversaturating the franchise with too many characters and bulky difficult-to-untangle lore. The John Wick franchise has been so successful partly because it struck a perfect balance in these areas, by being a three-part small-screen spinoff The Continental can build on it without making it unwieldy and cumbersome for future movies like John Wick 5.

The Continental Cast: Are Any John Wick Characters In It?

The Continental John Wick spinoff sports an interesting cast, especially given that it’s set in the ’70s and will focus on a young version of Winston. The Continental cast will also feature other John Wick characters such as The Adjudicator, who was played by Asia Kate Dillon in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. However, just because the show features John Wick characters doesn’t mean that it’ll see any John Wick actors reprising their roles. The Continental is set in the ’70s, meaning that Winston will likely be in his late 20s/early 40s, and the Adjudicator as seen in the threequel likely wasn’t even born yet.

Instead, Winston will be played by Colin Woodell, and The Adjudicator will be played by Katie McGrath, who is likely a different character who held the Hight Table role before the one in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. Ayomide Adegun will play a younger version of Charon in The Continental cast too. However, the series also has a fascinating cast of new characters, even though not much is known about them. Mel Gibson plays a character named Cormac, and Hubert Point-Du Jour, Mishel Prada, Jessica Allain, Nhung Kate, and Ben Robson all have mysterious roles too.

Executive producers Albert Hughes and Basil Iwanyk spoke with IGN about the upcoming series, and about the decision to cast Mel Gibson in a role. Gibson has proven a controversial casting choice because of the backlash he has faced over his behavior on film sets in the past. While Gibson’s career hasn’t suffered for his actions, he has often been the subject of concern and criticism in the press.

While Iwanyk said there “wasn’t a consideration” when asked about Gibson’s controversial past, which includes an arrest for driving under the influence, Hughes offered a lengthier response. He explained:

“I think he fit the role, he fit what we needed based on his film past. And I’ll leave others to debate the other stuff because it’s not a black-and-white issue, and I don’t want to be sound-byted and clickbait. That’s a tricky game to get into. I have my own personal beliefs in life and whatnot about everything, but I’m here to entertain. And earlier in my career I wasn’t so careful. But there’s a weight that he brought, the stuff that he brought from his past roles and what he has done that we needed for this role. And I don’t think anybody could have fit better, let’s put it that way, just with his chops and his experience.”

Gibson’s extensive history in film makes him an experienced actor with a wide range of performances, and it sounds as though his role is a meaty one for an experienced actor to tackle, though there are other actors with similar backgrounds in movies. The choice to cast Gibson in the John Wick prequel The Continental might turn off some potential audience members, but the producers appear ready to accept that.

Related: John Wick: 10 Characters We Hope To See In The Continental

The Continental Story & John Wick Connections

While much is still shrouded in mystery, there are still plenty of details about The Continental story and the plot of the John Wick prequel show. Director Albert Hughes revealed that The Continental will still have John Wick’s action, explaining, “So what kind of fighting styles do all these people have? This one’s into guns, this one, karate. This one has a kung fu style… Early on, there’s an opening sequence that is Kirk and I nodding to the fans, don’t worry, we got you. And we weave it in, throughout.” In true John Wick fashion, The Continental will be partly set outside of the US too. Even though a big deal has been made out of the city of New York being embedded into the DNA of the series, some of The Continental will be set in England.

As The Continental John Wick spin-off takes place in the ‘70s, it’ll follow Winston as he becomes the New York Continental manager. The Continental John Wick spinoff will also do something that the franchise has never done before, which is to interpolate real-life events. The series will heavily feature the Mafia’s rise to economic power in the late 1970s in New York, hinting that Italians could have played a huge role in developing the High Table and the assassins’ underworld. The show will also depict England’s Winter of Discontent. The Winter of Discontent was one of the UK’s coldest winters and is known for the huge number of trade union strikes.

However, The Continental won’t be a historic drama – it is still a John Wick spinoff, so the franchise lore will still be the focus. With Winston is the main character of the show, The Continental will likely answer one big John Wick: Chapter 4 mystery. At the end of the fourquel, it was hinted that Winston is John’s father. The Continental could reveal the truth. Director Albert Hughes called The Continental a challenge because the John Wick series was never intended to be a string of movies with spinoffs and a shared universe. Hughes explained, “The issue we had with television was, how are we going to create a John Wick offshoot without cannibalizing ourselves or feeling like we’ve stripped mined the franchise.” That’s a problem that a lot of franchises have, as universes rapidly expand and studios develop so many spinoffs that it can oversaturate the IP.

However, the John Wick franchise has expertly built the world, using each movie as a building block and taking the world-building one step at a time without rushing, and The Continental looks like it’ll do the same. By looking backward instead of forward, the series could feature some exciting, new reveals about the world, and Hughes has taken influence from a directing great to continue the cinematic flourishes of the franchise. The director added, “I love the film aesthetic of New York in the ‘70s; Sidney Lumet is one of my three favorite directors of all time.”

Related: John Wick Prequel Show Will Reveal The Origins Of The Continental

How Many Episodes Of The Continental There Will Be

The Continental John Wick spin-off will tell its story in three episodes, and while that might seem a little on the low side, each of the three episodes will be 90 minutes long. The Continental is adopting BBC’s Sherlock approach, which worked perfectly, as it gave each episode enough time to explore a mystery without feeling rushed. If the cinematography and storytelling in The Continental are as great as the John Wick movies, the episodes will feel more like a trilogy of movies than a TV series. Hughes directed the first and third episodes, while Charlotte Brändström (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) directed the second episode.

The Continental Trailer

The Continental’s teaser trailer doesn’t reveal much in 90 seconds, but it sets the tone and gives a glimpse of a much more agile and action-ready Winston. To the sound of the disco track “I Feel Love,” the trailer showcases the aesthetic of 1970s New York is omnipresent and will likely be just as much of a character itself in The Continental John Wick spinoff. The trailer also revealed the full title of the series, The Continental: From the World of John Wick. Along with the trailer, new John Wick prequel updates have revealed screenshots of the series, which actually give more away about the show than the trailer.

In addition to closer looks at Woodell, Gibson, and Adegun, the screenshots reveal more characters, including somebody who could be a detective with a camera laying low in a vehicle. The images show more supporting characters too, and between the 70s New York setting, the costumes, and the violent concept, they give off an aesthetic similar to The Warriors, which John Wick: Chapter 4 even referenced. However, another trailer for The Continental that introduces new characters and more story details, along with more John Wick prequel updates, will likely arrive sooner than later.

Source: Collider