Just because a movie or show is spun off from a hit doesn’t mean it will stand on its own. This is the case with pretty much everything that is linked to John Wick. We saw it over the weekend with Ballerina – which seriously underperformed at the box office – and we saw it with TV series The Continental. And while John Wick franchise head Chad Stahelski still has faith in Ballerina as a producer, he continues to look down upon The Continental.
Chad Stahelski recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter for an extensive interview in which he discussed not only the John Wick movies but the multiple spin-offs that have been out and are in the works. One of the key takeaways that that he says those who actually worked on The Continental just assumed that because it was a John Wick spin-off that it would be a hit. “Keanu and I were — I wouldn’t say sidelined, but our opinion was heard and not really noted. [The studio] tried to convince me they knew what they were doing. A group of individuals thought they had the magic sauce. But if you take out Basil Iwanyk’s producing intuitiveness, if you take out Keanu’s way of delivering quirky dialogue and if you take out all the visuals I have in my head from Wong Kar-wai, anime, Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci or Andrei Tarkovsky … then it’s not the same thing. They thought this was as easy as using anamorphic lenses, do a kooky hotel, put in weird dialogue, and insert crime drama.”
As we know, this pretty much didn’t work out and The Continental stands as the worst-received John Wick property yet. While you might want to give some credit to The Continental by trying to branch out, when it comes down to it, it was just a cheap cash grab, so much so that they knew they had to add “From the World of John Wick” to the title.
Outside of The Continental and Ballerina, the ever-expanding John Wick universe will see a movie spin-off with Donnie Yen’s Caine, an animated prequel and, yes, John Wick: Chapter 5, all of which we can probably guarantee will be better than The Continental.
What is your opinion on The Continental? Did it have strong suits or was it everything Chad Stahelski says?
