Heralded as a three-part series "from the world of John Wick", new Prime Video drama The Continental goes deeper into the history of the infamous New York hotel-for-assassins that plays a central part in the Keanu Reeves-starring John Wick movies.
As you'd expect, the series boasts the same slick fight scenes and shootouts we've come to expect from the franchise, but while the four John Wick movies (released between 2014 and 2023) and next year's spin-off Ballerina are set in the present day, The Continental is a prequel series set way back in the '70s, four decades before the films.
That doesn't mean we shouldn’t expect some familiar characters from the movies to pop up in the halls and rooms of the iconic hotel – in fact, the plot of The Continental focuses on two fan favourites from the John Wick franchise, Winston Scott and Charon, and their dealings with the hotel’s manager in the 1970s, underworld kingpin Cormac (played by Mel Gibson).
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Who is The Continental's Winston Scott?
In the John Wick movies, Winston Scott (played by Ian McShane) is the present-day owner and manager of The Continental in New York, an old friend of John’s who has sworn his fealty to the High Table, a powerful group of leaders of society with underworld connections.
Winston enforces the strict code of The Continental – no "business" (which means no murders or assassination attempts) can be carried out under the hotel’s roof – and anyone who breaks this rule will be made “excommunicado” (which usually means a grisly death awaits you).
"Winston is one of my favourite characters," John Wick writer Derek Kolstad said when the first movie was released. "He doesn't say a lot, but when he does, the Earth moves."
Who is The Continental's Charon?
The other notable figure at the hotel in the John Wick movies is Winston's wise concierge and right-hand man, Charon (played by the late Lance Reddick), who shares his name with the ferryman who transported the souls of the dead to Hades in exchange for a coin in Greek mythology.
In the movies, Charon is the man who grants admission to the hotel to assassins needing a safe haven (in exchange for – you guessed it – a special coin), and he also provides guns, sage advice and even dog-sitting services for John during the course of the films.
While both Winston and Charon are quite senior when we first meet them in John Wick (McShane was 72 when the first film was released, while Reddick was 52, and they are playing characters roughly their own age), they are, of course, much younger in the new series (and played by different actors).
Winston – played by Colin Woodell – is a young businessman based in London before he is called back to New York by "boss" Cormac, while Charon (Ayomide Adegun) is a teenager working for Cormac as his assistant.
The future friends' lives become entwined for the first time when Winston is instructed to find his estranged older brother Frankie, who has stolen a priceless coin press from Cormac that he wants back, no matter the cost.
What is the significance of the coin press in The Continental?
Special gold coins play an important part in the mythology of John Wick, and in the first episode of The Continental, we get to see the coin press that presumably makes them.
They are used as currency for services in the underworld, from bar tabs and rooms at The Continental to weapons, maps and even cleaners (to get rid of those annoying dead bodies that have a habit of piling up).
In John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, it is revealed that in the present day all of the High Table's gold coins originate at The Mint in Morocco, but we're guessing that back in the '70s, it was Cormac's coin press that produced them, which is why he wants it back so badly.
Will Keanu Reeves be in The Continental?
Back in 2017, when a prequel series to John Wick was first mentioned by director Chad Stahelski, the first question that was asked was whether Keanu Reeves would be appearing in the show as his iconic character.
At a panel to announce a possible series, which was originally going to be produced by Starz, the network's president of programming, Carmi Zlotnik, said he expected Keanu Reeves/John Wick to make an appearance.
"Keanu is an executive producer, and I think you can expect to see him at some point in the series. That is part of the ongoing conversation," he said, as reported by IndieWire at the time.
That was, however, six years ago when an early synopsis for the series said it was set "in a hyper-real version of Los Angeles" – since then the location has changed (The Continental is, of course, set in New York) as has the network (it is streamed by Peacock in the US, who bought the show from Starz last year).
So will Keanu make an appearance in The Continental, as Zlotnik predicted?
Unfortunately not. While Keanu is confirmed to appear in 2024's spin-off movie Ballerina (which is set between the third and fourth movies), he doesn't appear in The Continental, mainly because the series is set 30 to 40 years before the events of John Wick. John would be just a teenager in the series' timeline, and is more likely to be in high school than making a living as a junior assassin.
Even if we don't get to see Keanu in the series, there are some nods to the original movies to watch out for in The Continental – including Winston saying, "We need guns, lots of guns", a line John says to Winston in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (which is itself an Easter egg reference to a line Keanu Reeves says as Neo in The Matrix).
And with The Continental's executive producer Erica Lee hinting there could be future seasons of the show (via Collider), there is always the chance that John Wick/Keanu Reeves could check into the hotel in future, especially if there was a time jump between seasons.
"Those conversations are just starting now," she said recently. "There's definitely more story to tell."
The Continental is available to stream on Peacock in the US and Prime Video internationally.
Freelance film & TV writer, Digital Spy
Critic and writer Jo Berry has been writing about TV and movies since she began her career at Time Out aged 18. A regular on BBC Radio, Jo has written for titles including Empire, Maxim, Radio Times, OK!, The Guardian and Grazia, is the author of books including Chick Flicks and The Parents’ Guide to Kids’ Movies.
She is also the editor of website Movies4Kids. In her career, Jo has interviewed well-known names including Beyonce, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise and all the Avengers, spent many an hour crushed in the press areas of award show red carpets. Jo is also a self-proclaimed expert on Outlander and Brassic, and completely agrees that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
