Sign in to your MovieWeb account

The following article contains spoilers for the John Wick franchise.

, the filmmaker behind the visionary action franchise John Wick, has offered his harsh opinion on the TV spin-off released by Peacock, . The director behind all the John Wick films participated in the TV project as executive producer. However, he still slammed the series, saying that it lacked everything that made the action movies led by Keanu Reeves so memorable.

Stahelski recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about the extremely successful action franchise, which has recently released its latest spin-off, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. The film stars Ana de Armas, and actually features Reeves reprising his role as the legendary assassin-for-hire. Ballerina takes place between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4, and early reviews confirm that it's a solid addition to the franchise. Unlike The Continental: From the World of John Wick.

The three-episode miniseries was a prequel to the original film series, and told the origin story of Ian McShane's character, Winston Scott. Today it sits at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, but nonetheless, The Continental was eventually canceled. Stahelski spoke about the series, criticized the direction it took, and hinted at his own creative process, which has resulted in one of the most successful franchises in action film history:

"Keanu and I were — I wouldn't say sidelined, but our opinion was heard and not really noted. [The studio] tried to convince me they knew what they were doing. A group of individuals thought they had the magic sauce. But if you take out Basil Iwanyk's producing intuitiveness, if you take out Keanu's way of delivering quirky dialogue and if you take out all the visuals I have in my head from Wong Kar-wai, anime, [Sergio] Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci or Andrei Tarkovsky … then it's not the same thing. They thought this was as easy as using anamorphic lenses, do a kooky hotel, put in weird dialogue, and insert crime drama.

"If you saw our process, you'd be like, 'You're telling me this billion dollar franchise does it this way?' I'm scouting my next film in London and we saw a cool location yesterday which totally changed the second act. We rewrote the whole thing. I find great cast members and rewrite their parts constantly. That's what makes [the movies] so good and organic — we're constantly upgrading. But the studio likes to know what they're getting for their buck and want to lock a script for budget reasons. While we're saying, 'Just write the check, we'll see you at the finish line.'"

The Continental didn't feature Keanu Reeves' John Wick, because the story takes place decades before the events of the first 2014 film. The TV show raised the question of whether a John Wick production could still appeal to fans if it didn't feature the titular character, and the answer was a lukewarm reception by audiences. Meanwhile, Ballerina is trying to capitalize on the Wick-verse that it's part of, but it's still struggling to evoke the success of a regular John Wick film. Although Reeves reprises his role, the film is not centered around him.

The character died in John Wick: Chapter 4, and reviving him would require a major retcon. Although fans will surely welcome the resuscitation of their favorite action character, it would perhaps hint at the franchise owners struggling to find new ideas to keep the Wick-verse afloat without Reeves.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter