Before the assassin at its center ever picked up a weapon, the underworld had already built him a sanctuary: that's the premise behind The Continental: From the World of John Wick, a 2023 prequel series set decades before the films.
What is The Continental: From the World of John Wick about?
The story centers on the Continental itself, a chain of hotels scattered across the globe that operate as neutral ground for the criminal underworld, a place where rival factions can broker deals and lick their wounds without fear of violence under its roof. Set in 1970s New York, the series traces how that sanctuary came to exist and who fought to control it, told through a younger generation of the same world the John Wick films later made famous. Colin Woodell leads as a man drawn into the hotel's power struggle, alongside Mel Gibson, Mishel Prada, Ben Robson, Hubert Point-Du Jour, Kate Nhung, Jessica Allain, and Ayomide Adegun. Greg Coolidge directs a series that trades gunfights for institution-building, showing the rules of the Wick universe taking shape rather than simply being obeyed.
About the cast
Colin Woodell anchors the miniseries as its lead, with Mel Gibson bringing weight to the hotel's established power structure and Mishel Prada, Ben Robson, Hubert Point-Du Jour, Kate Nhung, Jessica Allain, and Ayomide Adegun rounding out a cast built around a younger, hungrier version of the Continental's underworld.
Context & significance
As a prequel to the John Wick films, the series leans on world-building rather than the assassin-focused action the franchise is best known for, using the 1970s setting to show how the neutral-ground rules and rituals later seen in the films were established in the first place. Greg Coolidge directs the full run at 269 minutes across its episodes, giving the origin story room to develop its own cast of hotel staff, criminals, and rivals rather than leaning on the films' established characters.
Watching The Continental: From the World of John Wick on Ktime
The Continental streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, making it fully watchable in Farsi. All that's required to stream is a free K-Time account with login; the show's page can be read by anyone without one, reflecting K-Time's Farsi-first streaming built for the Iranian diaspora.