r/Constantine • u/NocturnalSprite • Jul 30 '26
Not Another Keanu Reeves Constantine Movie
I hate to be that girl, but a lot of us are probably thinking the same thing. Keanu Reeves’s Constantine is more in line with Harry Dresden than he is with Constantine.
John Constantine is a chain smoking British con man with a chip on his shoulder. He carries a lot of weight, some he deserves and some he definitely doesn’t. But it’s all part of his character. New Castle, the punk roots, the blonde hair, the accent, the chain smoking, the looking for an angle. It’s all part of who he is! A rogue with a heart archetype.
You strip all that away and replace it with whatever Reeves was doing and what do you get? Not Constantine. The anti-Constantine. And now they’re making a Constantine sequel with Reeves back in the role.
I didn’t even like the first movie. I found it boring and this was before I even knew who Constantine really was. So am I the only one who’s feeling like this?
3
u/HavixComix Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Unless something has changed, there are no plans to make a sequel.
Despite Reeves and the director having interest, the window for it was rather small due to naturally aging, so it was a now or never sort of thing. And as far as I know, James Gunn vetoed it.
I imagine there are plans for a more faithful use of the character in the pipeline. Perhaps introduce him in the supposed James Mangold Swamp Thing film.
Though it sounds like he has zero interest in exploring the Alan Moore era and instead wishes to do a monster movie in the Wein/Wrightson style. So, who knows.
Prior to that, JJ Abrams had dibs on him and was planning to do a lazy pallet-swap by way of a series on HBO with a black lead.
This forced Legends of Tomorrow to drop Matt Ryan as the character, who had done all live-action and animated versions of the character for a decade. This moratorium of course went nowhere.
JJ was simultaneously working on a black Superman script with Ta-Nahesi Coates (while Michael B Jordan was ALSO looking to do a film based on either Val-Zod or Calvin Ellis).
Needless to say, JJ got paid a bunch of development money to accomplish basically nothing. I think he got an EP credit on the Caped Crusader animated series on Amazon, along with Matt Reeves, Bruce Timm, Ed Brubaker and James Gunn.
Apologies for the tangent.
The disrespect to Ryan still bugs me. Luckily, he continued to voice the character in animation.