Who Does Mel Gibson Play in Peacock's John Wick Spinoff Series The Continental?
Let's take a closer look at Gibson's role in the new John Wick prequel series.
In just a couple of weeks, a new chapter in the saga of John Wick will unfold when The Continental hits Peacock. A prequel series set in 1970s New York City, the series will revolve around the title hotel for assassins, and tell the story of how Winston Scott (Colin Woodell) came to be its proprietor.
RELATED: Everything to Know About The Continental
But Winston's not the only major player in The Continental's halls. To get to the top, he'll have to go through a ruthless, rough antagonist named Cormac, played by none other than Mel Gibson. But who is Cormac, and how does he fit into the larger story of The Continental? Let's take a closer look.
Who is Mel Gibson's Cormac in The Continental?
When we enter the world of the show, Winston is not yet in charge of the New York Continental, a job he'll hold with an iron fist by the time he shows up in the John Wick films. But someone has to be running things in the meantime, right? That's where Cormac comes in. When we meet him, Gibson's new heavy is the current reigning proprietor of the hotel, which makes him a major player in the world of the High Table that dominates the John Wick mythos. Gibson has described his character as both "mentor" and "tormentor" to Winston and his eventual right hand man, Charon (Ayomide Adegun), who rules over the Continental with a "nefarious" edge that makes the hotel quite a bit rougher than the one we see in the films, according to MovieWeb. That's a recipe for conflict.
And the conflict kicks off pretty quickly. In the trailer for The Continental series, we learn that the problems start when Winston's brother Frankie (Ben Robson) steals something of great value from Cormac, angering the unscrupulous proprietor. To get his possession back, Cormac threatens Winston with an ultimatum: Return the merchandise, or see the wrath of the Continental and the people who run it brought down on the Scott brothers. Sensing an opportunity to rid the world of a nasty piece of work, Winston opts to go to war instead, setting off the main conflict of the three-part event series.
In working to craft the character, Gibson partnered with showrunner Kirk Ward and director/producer Albert Hughes to develop a truly big presence for Cormac, as Hughes explained in an interview with Deadline.
"With Mel, Kirk and I decided he should be a little shabby on the edges," Hughes explained. "His organization skills aren’t as tight as Winston’s are later on. It feels a little cheap. Then I started coming up with my own motivations for the character, that was a cross between Joel Silver and Donald Trump. I would tell Mel little things along the way, but what I really told him was, go big. Chew up the scenery if you want. John Wick films do that."
We still don't know just how far Cormac will go to protect what's his, and how that will affect Winston in the long-term (beyond his eventual acquisition of the Continental, that is), but from what we've seen so far, the character has the makings of a full-on John Wick supervillain.
How to Watch Peacock's John Wick spinoff The Continental?
The Continental: From the World of John Wick will stream exclusively on Peacock, which means you're going to want to grab a subscription if you don't have one already. Plans start at just $5.99, and give you access to thousands of hours of programming, as well as live sports and other events.
The first episode of the three-part event series arrives on Peacock Friday, Sept. 22, with part two arriving one week later on Sept. 29 and part three landing on Oct. 6. All three-parts are 90-minute installments, so you're basically getting to watch three John Wick prequel movies across one event series.
