Set in 1970s New York, the 3-episode miniseries follows a young Winston Scott on a deadly journey through the mysterious underworld of the Continental in an attempt to take over the very hotel where he will ultimately claim his throne.
The story told by one of the most successful film franchises of recent years, that of John Wickexpands into The Continental. The new miniseries of Prime Videoavailable to stream starting today every Friday afternoon with an 80-90 minute episode for three weeks, takes fans back in time to the hell of 1970s New York to reveal how a young Winston Scott, played on the great screen from Ian McShane, ended up becoming the owner of the eponymous hotel for elite assassins. A rise that – it should be pretty clear to you by now, after four films – involves some very lethal business to deal with. Business involving the current head of the Continental, Cormac, a role for which the production wanted and managed to have the winner of two Oscars Mel Gibson.
Inside the story of The Continental
Handsome, intelligent, cold and controlled, Winston Scott (in this younger version played by the actor of The Originals Colin Woodell) is a shrewd businessman who thinks in an unusual way. Several years after a traumatic event involving him and his brother Frankie, we find Winston in London. Forcibly taken to New York, to the Continental, where he reunites with Cormac (Gibson), a crime boss and the current manager of the hotel, Winston discovers that the latter, an intimidating but fascinating force, is on the Frankie tracks (Ben Robson, Animal Kingdom), guilty of having stolen something very precious from him with the complicity of his wife Yen (Velvet Kate). Cormac orders him to find him before he kills him, and although Winston wants nothing more to do with him and his world, he will do what it takes to protect his brother, because he knows how ruthless and brutal Cormac is.
Save The Continental your Prime Video
That world and everything that revolves around it includes many other characters. Like Charon (Ayomide Adegu), Cormac’s trusted assistant whose loyalty is tested and must choose between his protector and a potential found family; role played in films by the late Lance Reddick. KD e Mayhew (Michelle Prada e Jeremy Bobb) are a pair of detectives with different approaches to the Continental’s affairs. While she is determined to uncover the city’s criminal underbelly with her own agenda, he bluntly warns her to stay away from the hotel. There is a play of strength between the two, and also something more that is not visible to everyone. Especially to Mayhew’s wife. Finally, the Lou brothers (Jessica Allain) e Miles (Hubert Point-Du Jour), entangled in the affairs of the mafia and the underworld out of necessity: the dojo that their father bequeathed to them is a trickle of money and they need to make more – with the complicity of Lemmy (Adam Shapiro) and in the past also by Frankie – to keep it open.
Rule no. 1: Don’t bore the audience
In an interview with TVLinethe director and executive producer Albert Hughes he said that one of the rules followed so that that of The Continental it sounds like a story from the world of John Wick was to make sure that “the audience didn’t get bored. This very mysterious mythology in which all the audience’s questions are never fully answered. In a certain sense it’s a kind of homage to European cinema; no one says that about films Of John Wick, but the last one had a very European ending even though Americans sometimes take things too literally. I didn’t take that ending literally. They were also good with the locations. With the fighting. With the color of the film. We took all of that and put it in the ’70s era with two characters you’re familiar with – Winston and Charon – but younger. And then we had to introduce the audience to new characters – and that was actually the biggest challenge.”
Discover Prime Video