John Wick TV Spinoff The Continental Development Has Been Disrupted Due to COVID-19

Like virtually all other Hollywood productions, The Continental has been disrupted due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In a recent interview with THR, John Wick director Chad Stahelski confirmed that while a writer's room had been assembled for the STARZ series, it's momentarily been delayed due to the various shutdowns. As the filmmaker puts it, it's one of the first projects he'll return to once Hollywood gives the go-ahead to get back to work.

"I haven't really heard anything from that side of things since COVID started and all that. I know they had come quite a bit…," Stahelski says. "They had put together a fairly detailed approach to how they wanted to get it. There are still a few things left to crack. Currently, I just don't know where they are. That's one of the first things we'll get back to when this is all over."

It appears Stahelski – director of all three Wick features – is much more involved in the development of the series compared to Wick creator and screenwriter Derek Kolstad. Earlier this month, Kolstad told ComicBook.com he was an executive producer in title alone and was completely separated from the project.

"No, I'm not involved with The Continental that much, if at all, in a non-writing EP, because when John Wick came out, I'm a baby writer," Kolstad said. "That was my first theatrical. I had done some direct to DVD and that kind of stuff beforehand, but I know very little about that one and yet I give it my blessing, because how fucking cool is that? When you think that you can, in the television space, have a playground that characters from its own space can enter and exit at any given time, depending on the strength of story, that's awesome."

STARZ boss Jeffrey Hirsch previously revealed the series would air sometime after John Wick: Chapter 4. Now that the movie has been delayed until May 2022, it has yet to be seen if that will remain the case or if The Continental will premiere beforehand.

"I had a meeting on a season pitch for this yesterday," Hirsch said (via Deadline). "We like the group of writers, and we're trying to get it in the right place so it doesn't interfere with the motion picture. It will air sometime after the fourth movie."

The Continental has yet to set a release date. The first three John Wick features are now available wherever movies are sold.