Producers Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee have been with John Wick since the beginning. They saw this property, which started in 2014 with a single film starring Keanu Reeves, blossom into a full-fledged franchise of which the most recent film, John Wick: Chapter 4, became one of the biggest movies of 2023, and the highest-grossing John Wick movie. This R-rated action film performed better at the box office than blockbuster projects like The Flash, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

Yet now, the franchise is in a drastically different place. John Wick: Chapter 4 supposedly marked the end of the story for Keanu Reeves’s character, which meant if the series wanted to expand, they would need to find a new avenue and, most importantly, get audiences to invest in a new corner of the franchise without the titular character. “The whole show is kind of based on an Easter egg from the first movie, where Winston says, ‘I’ve been running this place for 35 years,’ and the writer’s going, ‘That is where we are going to start,” said Iwanyk. Thus, The Continental was born.

The Continental focuses on the early years of Winston Scott, the owner of the Continental Hotel in the John Wick series, played by Ian McShane. The series sees Colin Woodell (The Flight Attendant) step into the role. Winston is a fan-favorite character, and the series also features a younger version of the late, great Lance Reddick’s character Charon, now played by Ayomide Adegun. Despite this, the duo acknowledged the challenge of getting audiences to invest in a new corner of the world but also the exciting prospect of it. Said Iwanyk:

I personally love prequels. I remember watching The Planet of the Apes series, and there was that prequel, X-Men: First Class; I love that. I like knowing where it was and going back and going, ‘That’s really cool.’

MovieWeb was invited to an interactive press junket for The Continental, alongside many other outlets, and was given the chance to hear Iwanyk and Lee break down some of the behind-the-scenes details regarding the upcoming series and what it means to expand the franchise.

Retaining Audiences Without Keanu Reeves
Peacock

The first thing on everyone’s mind is getting the audience on board with a John Wick franchise without the titular character. The franchise has been popular, but while audiences love the action, it is also the star power of Keanu Reeves that has helped cement the movies. It is a daunting task to try and spin the series off with new characters, and many franchises have tried and failed. This is a risk the producers know very well. “The big proof of concept is, will audiences embrace something in the Wick world that doesn’t have Keanu Reeves in it,” said Iwanyk. “We knew we needed to transition into television. It had to be a specific and big idea; you wouldn’t be asking those questions.”

Related: 10 Action Movies That Should Get a Prequel

Yet for as many people who saw John Wick for Keanu Reeves, there are also audiences who might not have seen John Wick and still might watch the series just because it looks like a cool premise. While everyone knows there are many different ways to watch the Star Wars series or the MCU films in different unique orders, John Wick has been rather straightforward. Yet now, with The Continental, there is a new entry point for the franchise for new fans if they want.

“I think the show completely stands alone, so you don’t need to watch the movies,” said Lee. “I think it is really fun if you’ve seen the movies because there are so many Easter eggs, and I think you are deeply invested in the Winston/Charon relationship and know what it will become, so watching the blossoming of that is compelling, but I don’t think you have too.”

The Leap to Television
Peacock

One thing that viewers will notice right away is the length of the episodes. While most streaming miniseries tend to be between six to nine episodes ranging from 45 to 50 minutes, The Continental is only three episodes, but each spans over an hour. They are, in many ways, mini-films, and this was intentional. “We don’t look at them as episodes; we look at them as three different movies,” said Iwanyk.

The idea of the episode format reportedly came from Chief Executive Officer of Lionsgate Entertainment Jon Feltheimer, who suggested doing it as a miniseries, harkening back to the days of television event miniseries with feature-length episodes. Yet even making the leap to television was daunting, said Iwanyk:

We’ve been hearing you can’t do action in television for years, and it’s so annoying. They always say ‘it’s too expensive” and we go ‘Is it?’ The first John Wick cost so little money relative to what you would think. It is just how you shoot it. We always say, ‘Don’t go bigger, go cooler.’

Lee said while the action was, of course, important, they also wanted to take a closer look at The Continental and expand the lore of the franchise. “In the movies, we have such a limited amount of time to delve into the characters and the world. Specifically, The Continental has become a character in the movie. Everyone wants to know more about it.”

Related: How The Continental Nails the Most Important Aspect of John Wick

How Far John Wick Has Come
Lionsgate

The John Wick series has come a long way in the nine years since the first film premiered. The landscape has changed drastically, as when the film franchise first hit, streaming series were still a relatively new concept. Now, John Wick is a global box office franchise, competing in the same spaces as movie series like The Fast & The Furious, Mission Impossible, and Indiana Jones. The Continental is an important step in the evolution of the franchise. It was not taken lightly. “There is almost an agonizing self-reflection of, how can we do more stuff to fill out the world but still keep quality, and that it still is cool without anyone smelling a money grab,” said Iwanyk.

“John Wick was not a preordained hit or franchise,” Iwanyk continued. “We made the series before we made John Wick: Chapter 4. Everything has been trying to push it a little bit further. How the audience has embraced the show so far is great because there is a buy-in to the world. There was trepidation, but if you aren’t scared, you aren’t paying attention.”

Since Lionsgate does not have a streaming service, The Continental is premiering on Peacock in the United Stades. While the streaming service might not demand the attention that Netflix or Disney+ does, with how popular John Wick is as a film franchise, there certainly is bound to be plenty of excitement for the series. This might be a big breakout hit for Peacock, just like the John Wick film series was a breakout hit with the audience. The Continental might be the turning point for the franchise, and many more stories in this universe could spin out from it.

The Continental premieres Sept. 22 on Peacock. You can watch the trailer below: