The Big Picture
Following the success of the John Wick franchise, subsequent spin-offs were inevitable. We’ve already had The Continental, a prequel series set around 50 years prior to the events of the Keanu Reeves-starring film series, while Ballerina, the movie starring Ana de Armas, will follow next year. That’s not all, thankfully, for Wick fans, as series supremo Chad Stahelski has been telling The Discourse podcast.
Stahelski admitted he’s keen to get his hands dirty once more, having taken a back seat on the production of The Continental, by helping to develop — and get behind the camera for — a series that will explore in more detail the idea of The High Table, the mysterious, all-powerful and almost omnipotent force that has controlled proceedings all through the series. However, Stahelski has cautioned about how the High Table will be portrayed, not wanting to descend into satirical stereotypes.
“Austin Powers mocked it so well,” he said of the idea. “An actual table with the stereotypes tropes of evil from different ethnicities from all over the world. We’re never going to show the whole High Table; we’ll show the representatives, but we’ll always keep some of that [mystery]. And now that we’ve got… Lionsgate is having us develop the John Wick TV show, so we thought we could explore The High Table in that a little bit.”
Which Characters Could Return for a ‘John Wick’ Spin-Off Series?
Expanding on the revelation, Stahelski revealed his thoughts that the show could follow the new characters introduced to the Wick universe in Chapter 4. A number of intriguing individuals popped up in Wick’s final days, all of whom remain on the table. Will they appear in the series? Anything is possible. Stahelski said:
“I love Donnie [Yen], I love Rina [Sawayama], love the Tracker (Shamier Anderson), and the TV show and the ancillaries will give us a chance to expand the kind of fun world we’ve created, and it doesn’t have to be John Wick, the character specific, you know what I mean so that we can explore all that stuff. And I think TV is a better format for that, I think because people can jump into the backgrounds, you don’t have to spend so much time with the first act set up and all that.”
Where Can I Watch the ‘John Wick’ Films?
The John Wick series can all be watched on Peacock, as can The Continental: From the World of John Wick.
With the price on his head ever increasing, legendary hit man John Wick takes his fight against the High Table global as he seeks out the most powerful players in the underworld, from New York to Paris to Japan to Berlin.
Release Date March 24, 2023
Director Chad Stahelski
Cast Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgard, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Lance Reddick
Rating R
Runtime 169 minutes
Main Genre Action
Watch on Peacock
