Inside ‘The Continental,’ The Spin-Off Set In The ‘John Wick’ Universe

The John Wick film franchise has grossed over $1 billion at the box office, so it’s no surprise that it would spawn spin-offs. First out of the gate is the 70s-set prequel The Continental: From the World of John Wick, a three-part TV series streaming on Peacock.

Surprisingly, while the movies do big business at the box office, with each installment earning more than the last, 65 percent of people who have seen a John Wick movie first watched it through home viewing. When presented with that fact, it turns out that Albert Hughes, The Continental‘s executive producer, is no different.

“You just hit on something I never even realized because I thought I saw all of them in theater, but thinking about it, I discovered the first one at home because it had picked up steam, and you started hearing about it,” he confessed. “I remember that at the time everybody was like, ‘It’s a good movie.’ Based off the movie and the trailer, you’d assume it was another genre movie. That’s hard, even with the show; when you see a trailer for the show or John Wick, they’re deceptive. You can’t convey the breadth of something or the vibe or tone.”

He continued, “When I saw the first one, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, what the hell is this?’ You could see director Chad Stahelski’s stuntman influences and Hong Kong cinema. I was surprised when I got into this, and he’d tell me about Bob Fosse, musicals and dance numbers, the Fred Astaire stuff, and how he turned into a ballet of bullets because he likes choreographing the fight scenes like a dance sequence.”

However, as much as Hughes, best known for previously helming movies such as Menace II Society, Dead Presidents, and The Book of Eli, was drawn to the project, he had pause for thought. He didn’t want to be the one to mess up the Wick Universe’s winning streak and tainting what had come before (or after).

“I don’t think I would have done it if it was contemporary and in the same timeline as John Wick because Chad is wonderful at what he does. He’s a one-of-a-kind. Keanu is also one of a kind, and that role fits him like a glove. I don’t think that would be a challenge or doing service to the IP,” the EP mused. “The fact that The Continental is set in the 70s is when I raised my eyebrows. What took me over the edge was past examples of this being done well. I thought of Jon Favreau with The Mandalorian and Tony Gilroy with Andor because those guys were playing in this IP sandbox that had been well-established, but they cut their own path while keeping the same flavor. It feels like Star Wars but also like a savage Sergio Leone western.”

“I also thought about Noah Hawley and Fargo. With the first three seasons, I was like, ‘Wow, I love the Coen Brothers, but this series may be better to me than the film.'”

The three-part series explores the origin behind the iconic hotel-for-assassins centerpiece of the John Wick universe and features younger versions of several characters fans of the franchise have come to know and love. Among them are Winston Scott, played by Colin Woodell here and Ian McShane in the movies, and Charon, played by Ayomide Adegun, stepping into the younger shoes of the late, great Lance Reddick’s beloved character.

“The challenges are in reverse engineering what the people love,” Hughes, who also directed the first and third episodes. “You’ve got to feed the beast, or in this case, feed the fan base, but let’s be honest here: the fan base cannot alone support a TV series, so you need new viewers. You need women and every demographic to be interested, so how do you do that?”

“You take up some nods from what they did well: artistically great production and design, great camera work and lighting, decadent and opulent sets, vast spaces, and trendy costumes. The number one most important thing and they never told me this, but I got it, is that it’s a cardinal sin to bore the audience. You cannot bore them. You must keep it moving and interesting, even if it doesn’t make logical sense; they’ll forgive you and go along for the ride if you keep them engaged.”

He continued, “The fun part of going back to the origins of Winston and Charon was that it’s in the 70s, and that’s the decade I was born and grew up in. I was turned on by the music, especially which I couldn’t explore in my other projects. I have my mother’s influence from listening to her taste, which is Pink Floyd, Creedence, and classic rock. My father’s music, James Brown and the Isley Brothers, which I was able to explore with the earlier movies, but now I get to tap into the biracial background that speaks to New York and is the premise of what America says it is a melting pot, but is it really? It is in New York, for sure.”

With Charon and Winston, what Hughes wanted to avoid was his actors trying to copy the performances of their peers who had played those roles. There was a fine but distinct line that they knew they had to walk.

“The word impression does mean imitation, and then there’s the other use of where you get the impression of something. That means you’re getting the feeling of the swag and the attitude, which was the goal. I talked with Colin when he was cast and did the same with Ayomide, who we plucked out of drama school in Wales when he was cast as Charon,” the executive producer recalled. “Ayomide had never been on camera before. For both of them, it was about them having the swag and attitude to convey with the younger version. Some people get caught up on Ian McShane’s accent as Winston. He has a pretty fluid accent; you can call it transatlantic, and in some moments, it’s more American, and there are others where it’s more British. You don’t want to imitate that because it’s not a finite accent, but you want the impression that you’re feeling him.”

Hughes becoming part of the Wick Universe also served as an unexpected and fortuitous reunion for the filmmaker and Kirk Ward, the show’s co-creator and co-writer.

“I didn’t know our paths had crossed before,” Hughes explained. “We were on a Zoom with all three writers that it began with, but he ended up being the sole showrunner out in Budapest. The first Zoom I had with him, he was rocking back and forth, and I was like, ‘This guy looks like he’s trying to happen on a double dutch game.’ Then he finally goes, ‘You know, we’ve already met, right?'”

“He told this whole story about being a valet at the Beverly Hills Hotel when my brother and I had these big Suburbans with TVs in it back, and that was when nobody had TVs in their cars. So we pull up, he’s really nice and recognizes us, and we’re like, ‘Oh, well, go ahead and go and watch the TV.’ So he’s sitting in there with his valet outfit on, and his boss comes in, cursing him out, like, ‘Get the f**k out of the Hughes Brothers’ car right now.’ He told his boss that we said he could sit there, but his manager said he couldn’t. I had no memory of this all, and I was so worried. I was like, ‘Well, were we nice to you?’ We’re always respectful of people, but I didn’t want to be caught on an off day of not being nice to him. He said we were really sweet.”

Hughes added, “He’s now become one of my best collaborators I’ve ever had and my partner in crime on this. He’s everything I needed, especially because I’m not working with my brother anymore; he’s like a brother to me. He’s just the sweetest man. He also played The Adjudicator’s henchman, which was my idea because he started as an actor in Hollywood when he was valeting, and I said, ‘You need to play this part.’ He’s beating the s**t out of that guy in episode one. That’s Kirk.”

Hughes taking the reigns for The Continental comes in the same year as Menace II Society, the acclaimed film that put him and his brother on the map in Hollywood, turns 30. Was that a landmark he has commemorated?

“I just heard it from you and two other people today, which fascinates me. My friends and my family never say anything, I haven’t gotten any calls, I don’t have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,” the director said. “I don’t think about it because I live a weird life in Prague these days that is quite modest. I live in an apartment, and it’s good for my head, so I wouldn’t know. It’s like being a twin. When you’re a twin, you don’t know you’re a twin until somebody says, ‘You guys are twins?’ and you’re like, ‘Oh, I guess we are twins,’ then, two seconds later, you forget you’re a twin again. The first movie is like that.”

“I know what it’s done for my life, and I know what it is to have made that and what it is to walk around this town, and everybody knows that movie for the most part, but I don’t walk with it on my mind. When you say 30, it’s like, ‘Goddamn. Time flies.'”

While Hughes’ three-part project enjoys its streaming debut on Peacock, elsewhere, another of his films, The Book of Eli, has been enjoying a renaissance on Netflix
NFLX
as one of the most watched pieces of content.

“I was first aware of something two weeks ago when I was at home in Prague, and I saw it come up on Netflix,” Hughes recalled, somewhat bemused by it. “My Czech friend messaged me and said, ‘You know, it’s the top three in the Czech Republic, right?’ It is a country of ten million people, but that tickled me because it was a very divisive film when it came out. We knew it would be divisive with critics because, for the most part, lean liberal, like me, some are atheist like me, and it had some religious overtones. I thought that was going to be a bumpy road going in, and we were questioned for it. I just said, ‘Well, I don’t believe in Millennium Falcons either, but I went along for that ride.’ That’s why I made the movie.”

He continued, “That also happened with Dead Presidents, our second movie. We were panned when that came out; it was a sophomore jinx, and the press was at us because we had big mouths, would speak our minds, and they wanted to knock us off the pedestal. They did a good job of it, and we probably deserved it in some ways. People talk to me more about that than the first movie, and I’m like, ‘Where is this coming from?’ It’s just weird, man. Like I say, I live in Prague, and to me, it’s a big village, but I’m happy to hear you and others bring this stuff up because it motivates me to keep working.”