The Continental: John Wick TV Show to Have Bigger Episode Budget Than Game of Thrones

Starz has given The Continental a pretty hefty overhaul as it inches closer to production. Friday afternoon, news surfaced painting the John Wick spinoff as an event series. Instead of a limited series or something else, The Continental will now be a three-episode “event series,” with each episode essentialy being treated by the network as a feature film, both production-wise and with budgeting.

Per THR, each episode is expected to carry a 90-minute runtime and receive a budget of upwards of $20 million or so. In comparison, HBO reportedly budgeted between $10 million to $15 million per episode for the final season of Game of Thrones.

The Continental series will take place roughly 40 years before the events of the main John Wick film timeline and feature Winston’s ascension to power with the eponymous hotel. Since the series takes place decades ago, neither Ian McShane (Winston) or Keanu Reeves are expected to have a role in the series.

“We took a lot of pitches, and then the creative team from this obscure little show called Wayne that was on YouTube came to us with their take,” Lionsgate TV boss Kevin Beggs previously said of the series.

He added, “We were really blown away because it solved a bunch of problems and was super exciting, about a crumbling New York in the 1970s with a garbage strike that has piled up bags of garbage to the third floor of most brownstones, the mafia muscling in on that business which is why in The Sopranos he’s in the sanitation business, and other things that are really real as an interesting backdrop to explore the origins of The Continental which is famously within the movie franchise the assassin’s hotel in which you cannot kill anyone on the hotel grounds, but of course if you step one foot off you’re fair game, and that’s employed to great effect in many of the plots in the movies. Running all of that is Winston, who is played by Ian McShane.”

The Continental is produced by Chad Stahelski, Derek Kolstad, and Basil Iwanyk. Episodes One and Three of the series will be directed by Albert Hughes (The Book of Eli).

John Wick: Chapter 4 is currently set to enter theaters on May 27, 2022 while The Continental has yet to set a release date.

What other Wick spinoffs would you like to see? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter!