The well-endowed spinoff series will center on Ian McShane’s character from the film franchise.
As a fourth and fifth sequel gets set for a future release, the John Wick franchise stays full steam ahead with the announcement of a spinoff prequel series that focuses on the film’s famous hotel for assassins.
According to an exclusive coverage by The Hollywood Reporter, “The Continental,” which is slated to be a three-part event series, boasts a “hefty budget upwards of $20 million” per installment, bringing the project’s over cost to about $60 million. This trumps the first two film’s total expenditure, with John Wick 1 and 2 only seeing light on $20-30 million and $40 million respectively. It wasn’t as big as the third film’s budget, though, as John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum was made on a $75 million budget.
The prequel series will follow the early story of the New York Continental and its owner, Ian McShane’s Winston, “a hitman hotelier who, along with others, create a haven for unsavory types, all set against a backdrop of 1970s New York.” In the movies, the hotel serves as neutral grounds for Keanu Reeves’ John Wick and other assassins to recuperate and retrieve weapons, which meant the killing of any kind within its premises is strictly prohibited.
We last saw Winston in Parabellum where he double-crossed Wick to maintain his hold over The Continental and his ties with the High Table Adjudicator, played by Asia Kate Dillon. “The Continental” will give us a glimpse of how Winston and his team of confederates found their way into the property and kept power for forty years.
While McShane has confirmed that he won’t star in the series himself, he could possibly join the project with voiceovers.
First announced back in 2017, “The Continental” was supposed to be a traditional series helmed by the films’ director Chad Stahelski before it received a big bump in the budget.
Now, each installment is set to run for about a film’s length, or around 90 minutes each, with franchise creator Albert Hughes (The Book of Eli) set to sit in the director’s chair for the first two episodes.
The three-part series is scheduled to debut on the American network Starz after the fourth John Wick film is released. John Wick 4 is set to hit theaters on May 27, 2022.
