Mel Gibson set to star in John Wick TV spin-off, breaking the series' perfect streak of coolness

Everyone else in Hollywood was apparently too busy for Starz's The Continental

By Sam Barsanti  |  October 18, 2021 | 8:39pm
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Mel Gibson set to star in John Wick TV spin-off, breaking the series' perfect streak of coolness
Mel Gibson Photo: John Phillips

The John Wick series rules. The fight scenes are fun, the increasingly bonkers mythology is cool, and Keanu Reeves’ John Wick serves as a reminder to protect the things in your life that help you feel like a fully realized person while rejecting the pressures from those in power to reduce yourself to a machine that only exists to do one “useful” job—be it, you know, accounting or plumbing or working as an assassin for various international factions that all serve under some vague hierarchy of murderers. Also: God damn, those fight scenes.

Three movies in, it seemed like it would just be a matter of time before John Wick would screw that all up somehow, with the safest bet being that the series would eventually go way too far up its own ass with the mythology stuff. That might still happen, but no, the John Wick series just managed to screw it up with a casting decision: According to Deadline, Mel Gibson is going to star in Starz’s spin-off series The Continental as a new character named Cormac.

Yes, this is the same Mel Gibson who went on an antisemitic tirade after getting pulled over for a DUI 15 years ago, threw a tantrum when he couldn’t get the budget he wanted for Braveheart, was accused of abusing ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorievas, was heard going on another racist tirade on a series of leaked tapes, and once asked Winona Ryder at a party if she was an “oven dodger.”

Hollywood put him in time out for a few years, but since then—and especially since the success of Hacksaw Ridge—he’s just been given chance after chance after chance after chance after chance.

His latest chance is this John Wick TV show, which will be about 1970s New York and a young version of Winston Scott, the character played by Ian McShane in the movies. The Deadline story doesn’t say why Gibson had to play this role, but we can only assume it’s because either the showrunners (Wayne’s Greg Coolidge and Kirk Ward) called literally every other actor and aspiring actor in Hollywood and were told they were busy or because they specifically wanted Mel Gibson.

The John Wick movies, which have managed to cast a whole bunch of roles so far without resorting to hiring Mel Gibson, will return with a fourth installment at some point in the near future. It’s currently shooting in Europe and Japan.

 
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