Mel Gibson Cast in John Wick Prequel The Continental

Mel Gibson has been cast in The Continental, the upcoming TV series from Lionsgate TV and Starz. The Lethal Weapon star is set to play a character named Cormac, with little other information about him. The story centers on the early days of the titular hotel, which is run by Winston Scott (Ian McShane) and caters to a client base made up of assassins. It was a murder John committed in the hotel at the end of John Wick Chapter 2, which kicked off the events of the rest of the film series by alienating him from the society established in the early chapters.

Neither McShane nor John Wick title star Keanu Reeves will appear in the series, although Reeves may serve as an executive producer, and McShane is open to providing some voice over work, presumably for bookend segments or something. There is no word yet on who will play the younger version of Winston.

"It's such a successful franchise, it's on its way to its fourth and fifth installments as a movie," Lionsgate TV's Kevin Beggs told Deadline, who broke today's news. "It's got such a great mythology and such interesting style, and the gun fu approach of these incredibly poetic stunt esthetics is just out of this world, which is why the movie with Keanu Reeves - who is so amazing in everything he does but particularly compelling as John Wick in our mind - it just cries out to be something in TV. Just like the Marvel Universe and the DC Universe from a TV perspective are incredibly opportunities, and that is our superhero franchise in the family. What we're exploring in The Continental is the young Winston and how it came to be that he and his team of confederates found their way into this hotel which we have met for the first time in the movie franchise 40 years later. That's the arena. I won't give away more than that, but Starz really leaned into this take also, and they have been great collaborators. And how we've approached this first season is as three essentially 90-minute events which you could construe as a limited series or a limited event series."

The Continental will take place in the 1970s, and presumably introduce new characters and concepts that can be picked up on in future films if need be. It is part of a new trend, which includes Marvel's Disney+ shows and DC's HBO Max installments, but also things like the short-lived Treadstone, which played a similar role for the Jason Bourne franchise on USA.