'John Wick' to Get Spin-Off Series After Massive Box Office Success, Top-Billed Actor Is Missing from Trailer
Peacock, the streaming service of NBCUniversal, released on Thursday the first teaser trailer for “John Wick” prequel series scheduled to come out in September.
Within a day, the video — which doesn’t actually provide much information about the series other than its title, the fact that it’s set in New York City in the 70s, and perhaps a sense of the look and feel of the show — had amassed over 2.5 million views.
And one key element of the show didn’t appear in the video at all: Mel Gibson, the “top-billed actor” in the limited three-episode series, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you can take a gander here:
The outlet quoted the “official description” of the new project: “The three-part event will explore the origin behind the iconic hotel-for-assassins centerpiece of the John Wick universe through the eyes and actions of a young Winston Scott, as he’s dragged into the Hell-scape of 1970s New York City to face a past he thought he’d left behind.
“Winston charts a deadly course through the hotel’s mysterious underworld in a harrowing attempt to seize the hotel where he will eventually take his future throne.”
I’d bet good money that what this statement called the “John Wick universe” will become the “Wickiverse” in the entertainment media before all is said and done.
Whatever one calls it, the Oscar-winner’s presence in it didn’t come up in that blurb, either.
That may be because, as the Reporter put it, Gibson’s “casting in The Continental caused a backlash on social media when announced, centered on the actor-director’s history of antisemitic comments.”
According to the report, the project, the full title of which is “The Continental: From the World of John Wick,” has been in development since 2018.
If the responses to the Reporter’s article on Twitter are any indication, Gibson’s casting remains an issue for “John Wick” fans — or at least for people claiming to be “John Wick” fans.
Nearly all the responses were negative.
That’s disappointing. Was looking forward to watching this.
— cornell (@Shav330) April 13, 2023
Excellent. That will free up a ton of time when I don’t watch it because he’s in it.
— kalbzayn (@kalbzayn) April 13, 2023
Won’t watch it. I love Keanu but this is a hard pass.
— 🇺🇦 😷MeeMawFella Sez Whut 🏳️🌈👩👦🧋🚬 (@ShamanDenver) April 12, 2023
Unfortunately for MeeMawFella Sez What, there has been no indication that “John Wick” himself will appear in the series anyway — which makes sense, because even if Reeves were in New York City in, say, 1975, he would have been 10 years old.
That’s probably a little young for 3-gun shooting.
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