JOHN WICK Director Chad Stahelski Isn't Holding Back About THE CONTINENTAL - 'Our Opinion Was Not Really Noted' — GeekTyrant
The world of John Wick is built on a very specific recipe… one part Keanu Reeves, one part kinetic fight choreography, and a whole lot of visual flair pulled from anime, spaghetti westerns, and 1970s crime films.
According to director Chad Stahelski, the creators of Peacock's The Continental missed nearly all of that.
While Ballerina , the first big-screen spin-off featuring a brief return from Reeves, finds its footing in theaters, Stahelski isn't mincing words about the TV show that tried to expand the Wickverse without him.
In a recent conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, he pulled back the curtain on just how detached he and Reeves were from The Continental , and how the final product felt far from what they'd built. Stahelski explained:
'Keanu and I were — I wouldn't say sidelined, but our opinion was heard and not really noted. They 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 Bertucci or Andrei Tchaikovsky... 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.'
That disconnect shows. While The Continental had talent like Mel Gibson and Colin Woodell attached, it came and went with little fanfare, a blip in a franchise known for its pop-cultural impact.
Stahelski went further, sharing what makes the films tick, and how different that process is from the way studios typically operate.
'If you saw our process, you'd be like, 'You're telling me this billion dollar franchise does it this way?' I'm scouting my next film in London and we saw a cool location yesterday which totally changed the second act.
'We rewrote the whole thing. I find great cast members and rewrite their parts constantly. That's what makes [the movies] so good and organic — we're constantly upgrading. But the studio likes to know what they're getting for their buck and want to lock a script for budget reasons. While we're saying, 'Just write the check, we'll see you at the finish line.''
It's that looseness, that constant reshaping on the fly, that gives John Wick its badass pulse, and it's a process that clearly didn't carry over to the TV adaptation.
Looking ahead, the next spin-off will follow Donnie Yen's character, Caine, and Stahelski sounds far more confident about that one.
'The Donny Yen spinoff doesn't have the John Wick character. It's got Donny Yen and it's an ode to kung fu movies. If John Wick 1 was about Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, this is about Chow Yun-fat, John Woo and Wong Kar-wai. So I think that one is a little easier to get it across to audiences because it's in a sub-genre of what we love.'
As for John Wick himself? After Chapter 4, it looks like the character has officially bowed out… for now. But Stahelski doesn't rule out a return.
'The studio would very much will it into existence, I'm sure, at some point. Look, they've been great and they've asked us to really try and we have a really good couple of ideas and we're going to try.'
I'm sure that we'll see Wick back in action at some point. I'll be very surprised if we don't. I just don't want to see talent, time, and money wasted on another half-assed spinoff series.
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