“The Continental: From the World of John Wick” is a crime drama miniseries that serves as a prequel to the famous film franchise.
Let’s find out some trivia and facts about the new miniseries.
- The Continental: From the World of John Wick is an American crime drama television miniseries
- It is also simply known as The Continental
- The series is developed by Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward and Shawn Simmons
- It is serves as a prequel spin-off in the John Wick franchise
- Coolidge and Ward served as showrunners for the series
- They wrote the scripts alongside Simmons and Ken Kristensen
- Albert Hughes directed the first and third episodes
- Charlotte Brändström directed the second
- The show stars Mel Gibson and Colin Woodell
- The series premiered on September 22, 2023 on Peacock in the United States
- It was available on Amazon Prime Video internationally
- The Continental: From the World of John Wick tells the background story of how Winston Scott
- In an alternate history 1970s, he came to his position as proprietor of the New York branch of “The Continental” chain of hotels
- These are safe havens for legal assassins on the grounds of which no business may ever take place
- The series explores variations on real-world events, including the Winter of Discontent and the American Mafia’s rise to economic power
- While planning the story for John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum in January 2017, Derek Kolstad and Chad Stahelski were also conceiving ideas for a prequel story
- Suggesting that a prequel would be best told in the form of a television series
- In June 2017, the series was confirmed to be in full development
- And the story would be called The Continental, focusing on the hotel that acts as a safe haven for assassins in the John Wick universe
- Lionsgate gave the project an official green-light in January 2018 and planned for the series to air on its Starz network
- Initial reports indicated Chris Collins would serve as showrunner
- Stahelski initially planned to direct the first episode of the series and stated that it would serve as an origin story for several of the characters in John Wick
- In April 2021, Kevin Beggs, chairman of Lionsgate Television, said the team wanted to make sure that the series would add to the world-building of the John Wick universe without inhibiting any plans for future films
- After hearing multiple pitches from different creative teams, Lionsgate settled on the approach presented by Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward, and Shawn Simmons
- The format of the show was re-worked into an event series of three 90-minute episodes following a young Winston in the 1970s
- Coolidge and Ward were named the new showrunners with additional executive producing help from Shawn Simmons, Paul Wernick, and Rhett Reese
- Albert Hughes and Charlotte Brändström were hired to direct
- In October 2021, the cast members were announced, starting with Mel Gibson
- He was followed by the rest of the lead cast including Colin Woodell as young Winston Scott from the main John Wick films
- Additional casting announcements in November 2021 revealed that Peter Greene and Ayomide Adegun would portray younger versions of Uncle Charlie and Charon, respectively
- Jeremy Bobb was cast as a new character named Mayhew
- In February 2022, roles were announced for Katie McGrath as The Adjudicator, Ray McKinnon, Adam Shapiro as Lemmy
- As well as Mark Musashi and Marina Mazepa as Hansel and Gretel
- Principal photography began in November 2021 in Budapest, Hungary
- On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, The Continental: From the World of John Wick has an approval rating of 49%
- Based on 57 reviews
- With an average rating of 6.1 out of 10
- The website’s general consensus reads, “The Continental: From the World of John Wick offers some stylish action, although it’ll be most satisfying for hardcore fans invested in further franchise world-building”
- Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the show a score of 54 out of 100
- Based on 24 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”
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