The Continental: Inside the First John Wick Spinoff Without John Wick (Exclusive Photos)

“All we do in the John Wick universe is worry.”

Basil Iwanyk might be exaggerating a little here, but in general, he doesn’t mince words when talking about the pressure behind The Continental, Peacock’s (slated to release on Prime Video in India) upcoming John Wick prequel miniseries. Iwanyk has been with John Wick since the first movie in 2014, producing all four films in the series, upcoming Ana de Armas spinoff Ballerina, and The Continental – and he acknowledges that it’s “very intimidating” to embark on this first John Wick spinoff that doesn’t have the famous Keanu Reeves character at its center.

“There’s no other word for it,” he says in an interview with IGN. “But I have to say, from movie to movie, we’ve been intimidated because we were the accidental franchise. The first movie, no one thought would ever have the impact it had, let alone start a franchise…. We’ve always felt like we were the underdog and that we were in a street fight. That intimidation is nothing new for us.”

So how do you approach John Wick without John Wick? You go back to the beginning. The Continental will unfold over three 90-minute episodes this September, heading to 1970s New York to essentially provide an origin story for Winston Scott – the character played by Ian McShane in the films – and how he came to be the proprietor of his branch of the titular assassin safe haven. It’ll have another familiar face in Charon, the Continental concierge played by the late Lance Reddick in the movies, as well as a wide array of new characters, including Mel Gibson’s villainous Cormac.

You can see a gallery of eight exclusive first-look images below:

Winston is a character that’s always intrigued Iwanyk. Looking back at the first movie, Iwanyk remembers that McShane was one of the last, “if not the last,” person they cast, and the producer says he basically got him on board for the role because it was shot in New York over Thanksgiving weekend – meaning Iwanyk could essentially offer McShane and his wife a paid Thanksgiving New York trip, with a little bit of work involved.

But what started as a quick weekend shoot has evolved into one of the more memorable characters in the series, and a natural one to explore for the franchise’s first spinoff. Iwanyk says he and his creative partners went through a “long period of development” before settling on what The Continental would eventually become, bouncing around various ideas in the process. What about a new Continental in a new city with a new concierge?

Many of the ideas along those lines, however, just felt like “John Wick-lite,” Iwanyk says – until they remembered one particular line from Winston in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum: “I have served and been a beacon of order and stability to our industry for over 40 years.”

“The writers came up with the idea of going, ‘hold on, he’s been in this hotel for 40-something years – that would lead us to 2000, assuming 1973 or 74.’ And we were like, ‘God, that’s really cool. What about that? Him getting a hold of this hotel in the ‘70s in New York where it was lawless and crazy and post-war and nuts. That’s a cool premise for a gangster movie and that’s a cool premise for a Wick series.’ That’s how we came to that.”

Basically, it all comes back to Winston.

A New Take on Winston

Stepping into the shoes of that enigmatic character is Colin Woodell, playing a much younger version of Winston as he begins to navigate this assassin world. And while there’s a lot fans will recognize in his portrayal, Woodell tells IGN that Winston “is a completely different person and different version of himself in The Continental than he is in the films.”

Funnily enough, Woodell was one of the few people who hadn’t seen John Wick before he got the role, which the actor is actually grateful for as it allowed him to approach the audition process while not trying to emulate McShane. Woodell did end up binging all the movies after he found out he got the part, of course, and latched onto Winston’s constantly unfazed attitude.

“The first time you meet Winston [in 2014’s John Wick] – ‘have a drink and relax,’ that whole thing – there’s just a sense of ease in this world,” he says. “He’s so comfortable in a universe that is just dark and mysterious and very threatening. And Winston just has this air to him where he doesn’t really care. You also see it in John Wick 3 when John and Charon are battling all the High Table soldiers and he’s just sitting in his vault sipping a whiskey with the pit bull. It’s just like, ‘oh, this guy doesn’t really give a shit.’ “

“Trying to match that is very intimidating,” Woodell continues. “But I also think it was a great template for me to be like, ‘okay, this guy is incredibly smart. He’s creative with his choices, but he’s also a brains over brawn kind of guy. In a world of violence, he’s going to try to out-calculate someone.’ “

“I really didn’t want to match what Ian was doing because Ian does something really specific and it’s hard to gauge exactly what it is.

As for handling a character who’s already been played by another actor, executive producer and director of The Continental Episodes 1 and 3 Albert Hughes says Woodell and Ayomide Adegun, who’s playing a young Charon, “did their own exploration,” and Woodell noted that he was focused on making the role his own. But there are still certain challenges that come with these characters, like Winston’s very specific accent.

“There’s a thing with Ian McShane where he has a kind of transatlantic, slightly leaning British [accent], and it’s very hard to ask an actor to do that,” Hughes says. “And we tried this kind of balance knowing that it was a younger Winston who was raised in London.”

“I really liked the idea of Winston coming back to New York and having this tie to home that he can’t escape and that shows in the reflection of his voice,” Woodell adds, acknowledging that landing on the correct accent was “tricky.” “And I really didn’t want to match what Ian was doing because Ian does something really specific and it’s hard to gauge exactly what it is, and it makes him so special.”

And going back to that concept of deepening Winston’s backstory, The Continental will delve into two major relationships in his life: the one between Winston and his brother, Frankie (Ben Robson), as well as Charon, of course.

Woodell admits that he and Adegun were “super intimidated” about living up to what he calls an indescribable chemistry between McShane and Reddick, but the audience’s existing awareness of the two also meant that they didn’t have to “force it right away.”

“That is a gift for us in a prequel situation because we don’t necessarily have to show it. It can just exist,” he says. “And a lot of the story takes place between the two of them, at least off screen. So you get to see it develop slowly over time.”

Action in the ‘70s Big Apple

The Continental represents something of an interesting experiment: John Wick has always had a fairly straightforward plot, even if the mythology around The Continental deepened as the series went on, and largely gained a fanbase over its stunningly choreographed stunts. This series, meanwhile, is opening up a whole new cast of characters as well as delving deeper into Winston as a character.

But hey, this still is John Wick. You’ve gotta have some action.

“We definitely wanted to dig deeper into the characters, into the lore, into the world, into the mythology. That’s the great thing about television,” Iwanyk says. “The blessing and the curse of television is, with few exceptions, like Game of Thrones or whatever, you’re not going to have the budget that you would have on a huge tentpole film. So you have to be clever about how you pull off the scope and the scale of the action.”

Hughes acknowledges that there were certain limitations when it came to budget, but points out that the first John Wick was made for a lean $18 million, and director Chad Stahelski still managed to pull off some fantastic stunts. In short, Hughes “didn’t feel confined” by the TV medium.

“My goal was actually to tone it down just a bit because we aren’t John Wick,” he says. “And don’t get into action fatigue because we are in multiple episodes and you have to delve into these characters and storylines, which in a two-hour movie, you have to keep it moving.”

“My goal was actually to tone it down just a bit because we aren’t John Wick.

But even John Wick toned down is still John Wick. In fact, Hughes teases that episode 3 has “57 minutes of action,” and Woodell says he and his castmates were constantly training.

And it all takes place within a “hyper-styled ‘70s,” Hughes notes, which are some vibes that he absolutely wanted to take advantage of. He points to “Easter eggs” in the episodes that call back to major pop culture of the time.

“Everything from our favorite ’70s cars, from TV shows like Starsky and Hutch to the movie Warriors,” he says. “…We copied the exact taxi from Taxi Driver. Then there’s commercials that we love. And of course, the biggest thing was the music. John Wick the film series has its very cool techno-driven score that’s very unique. And we found this guy, Raffertie, who’s very talented, who created kind of a riff on it, but very more kind of grounded in a way because techno wasn’t really big in the ’70s. It was disco. It’s where it all came from. So, we dabbled in disco, classic rock, punk, pop, funk, all the stuff from my childhood.”

Hughes adds that he had “the time of my life” working on The Continental, perhaps more than anything else he’s done before. So, the question has to be asked: would he do it again?

The Future of The Continental

Of course, Peacock still needs to see if The Continental will do well, but it’s clear that Lionsgate is eager to continue to expand the John Wick universe. Going back to that anxiety Iwanyk mentioned earlier, he stresses that “we don’t want to screw this up.”

Still, Hughes admits he’s thought about what another season of The Continental could look like. In fact, he mentions that showrunner Kirk Ward got him excited about an idea that would explore the establishment in the early ‘80s.

“I’m thinking music first,” Hughes says. “And thinking about the second British invasion of music, and 1984 was a big year. And so we just have these moments where we dream, whether or not there’s going to be a second season. Who knows whether I’m going to be invited back or Kirk’s going to be? Who knows? But we just geek out over the ’80s, and we actually have a plan for what would happen in the ’80s. So that’s exciting.”

“We just geek out over the ’80s, and we actually have a plan for what would happen in the ’80s.

Woodell, too, wishes he had more time with his version of Winston, especially with how much ground they were trying to cover in three episodes, even if they are feature-length.

“There’s so much to say and yet there’s also so much that you can’t get to say,” he says. “That was probably the biggest challenge of this whole shoot, was having to essentially shoot three separate movies and try and figure out the scope of it all. Not to mention just the individual arcs, but the overall arc and how it all comes together. There aren’t really many things out that exist in a series format that are this big on this scale and with this amount of time while also trying to honor the beautiful gun choreography that exists in the movies.”

He even hints that we’ve never seen a young John Wick before, and says he’d like to see more about who Winston becomes in between his version of the character and the McShane one we know in the films.

But we’ll just have to wait and see if that’ll play out on the big – or small – screen.

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.