Following the news from Deadline of Greg Berlanti (Arrow, Love, Simon) signing a massive exclusive deal with Warner Bros, it seems he’s rounding out his cast for his upcoming film with Apple. Coming from a separate exclusive from Deadline, Woody Harrelson (True Detective, Natural Born Killers) will join the cast of Project Artemis.
The three-time Oscar nominee joins an already exciting cast that will be led by Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson. Additionally, Ray Romano and Jim Rash are expected to play important supporting roles in 60s set film that takes place during the space race. Berlanti is best known for setting most of DC’s television universe that includes shows such as Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Superman & Lois, Titans and Doom Patrol. He also serves as an executive producer on other popular Warner Bros. streaming series such as You and The Flight Attendant. Project Artemis marks Berlanti’s first collaboration with Apple.
Harrelson is coming off leading roles in Netflix’s The Man from Toronto alongside Kevin Hart and the indie film, Triangle of Sadness in 2022. He recently wrapped filming Suncoast with Laura Linney but will be seen this year in film and television. First, the actor will star in Bobby Farrelly’s sports dramedy, Champions before returning to HBO to star in the Watergate-set miniseries, The White House Plumbers with Justin Theroux. Both the film and series will release in March.
Ever since Lionsgate greenlit this series in early 2017, fans of the franchise have been eagerly anticipating to see how the John Wick universe expands. 4 movies in, the John Wick franchise is widely known as one of the greatest action movie franchises of all time with our titular character (a.k.a Baba Yaga) becoming one of the most iconic and bad-ass figures ever in Hollywood. The Continental: From The World of John Wick is a prequel series that tells the story of Winston Scott and how he became the manager of New York’s The Continental branch.
The miniseries was developed by Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward and Shawn Simmons. It is executive produced by Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese, Derek Kolstad, David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, the director of all four John Wick movies. It is structured as a 3-night event told through three 90-minute episodes. The series was originally supposed to air on Starz, but the network sold it to Peacock in 2022. After 6 years in development, it finally aired on Peacock this September.
A lot has been made of the subtitle of the project ever since it was announced. The fact that the makers needed to include it says a lot about the show. It almost felt like the prime marketing asset for it many times as the other promotional material didn’t necessarily create a lot of hype for the show. Albert Hughes directed the first and third episodes, while Charlotte Branstrom directed the second, and disappointingly both directors do not bring the same novelty or creative prowess that Chad Stahelski managed to bring in the John Wick movies.
The Continental [credit: Peacock]
The show also surprisingly lacks any real star power. This franchise is one of Lionsgate’s most prized assets, so you would imagine that they would make sure to get a big cast and crew for this prequel miniseries, but they didn’t. Colin Woodell as Winston Scott is the clear standout among the cast despite delivering only a decent performance, which says a lot about the acting standards in this 3-episode miniseries. Many have criticized the casting of Mel Gibson in the series, but I personally had no issue with his performance and he’s also the most recognizable member of the cast despite having no real audience pull anymore.
The writing doesn’t offer too much to ponder upon or any seriously shocking turns in the story as most of the focus is on making the product as epic, badass and action-packed as possible. Some of the characters had some interesting layers to them, especially Charon (Ayomide Adegun) and Lou (Jessica Allain). Lemmy (Adam Shapiro) provides some much-needed comic relief with his witty dialogues. The structuring of the story works really well as a 3-night event which sets the high stakes and sets a standard of intensity for the narrative.
The Continental [credit: Peacock]
But the thing that people were most looking forward to, was the action and how it fared against John Wick. Unfortunately, that department was inconsistent as well. Ben Robson’s fight sequence in the early part of the first episode was great and it makes you optimistic that the action would get better from here on, but it never does. Most of the action blocks here involve explosions and guns rather than the hand-to-hand combat John Wick franchise is known for. Some of the action was awesome and some of it sadly wasn’t.
The Continental: From the World of John Wick brings a lot of glamour as it tries to expand its world but fails to engage with its paper-thin plot. The characters are mostly dull with a formulaic villain and misses the presence of a magnetic protagonist like Wick. A prequel about Wick’s backstory would’ve been much more interesting than this inconsistent prequel event saved by its style and some great action. It has almost enough to be its own thing but doesn’t quite have enough to match its parent movies.
The Continental: From the World of John Wick premieres on Peacock in the US and Prime Video in the UK and Australia on 22 September, with new episodes weekly.