Fans of the John Wick franchise have more to look forward to than John Wick: Chapter 3 and the potential female-led spin-off Ballerina. Last year Chad Stahelski, who co-directed the first film and directed the second, revealed plans for a television spin-off called The Continental and now it has found a home at Starz.
Starz President & CEO Chris Albrecht announced at the Television Critics Association today that it has picked up the series, developing it with Lionsgate. The Continental will focus on the exclusive Continental Hotel seen in the films that serves as a neutral refuge for the world’s assassins and high class criminals. Rather than being set in New York City, the series will instead take place in Los Angeles.
“This series is truly unlike anything else on TV,” said Albrecht. “The Continental promises to include the thunderous fight sequences and intensely staged shootouts between professional assassins and their targets that fans have come to expect in the John Wick movie franchise as well as introducing some new, darkly compelling characters who inhabit this underground world.”
Chris Collins (Sons of Anarchy) will write and showrun the series while it will be produced by several John Wick veterans Basil Iwanyk, Chad Stahelski, John Wick franchise screenwriter Derek Kolstad, along with Collins, David Leitch (John Wick co-director) and the man himself, Keanu Reeves. Stahelski will also direct the series pilot.
At the time last year, Stahelski said “It’s very tied to the film [in that] it’s about the Continentals all over the world, how certain people come into that world, and what happens in relation to those people, which is cool. I think the world is very vast, and everything I’ve heard from it is very positive. It’s something that [Lionsgate] seems very, very intent on [making] and very, very behind.”
Meanwhile, John Wick: Chapter 3 has begun pre-production for a Spring shoot with a May 17, 2019 release date.
Are you excited to see more of the John Wick universe through The Continental? Let us know in the comments below…