While doing the rounds for his Netflix fantasy adventure Slumberland (read our ★★★ review here), director Francis Lawrence has been speaking about plans for his recently announced Constantine sequel, and his desire to “make a real R-rated Constantine”.
Released in 2005, Constantine starred Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf and featured an iconic performance from Tilda Swindon as Gabriel. It received middling reviews and grossed $230 million at the worldwide box-office at a time pre-dating the dominance of comic-book movies on the big-screen.
However, like its much-maligned leading man, who took a lot of stick for being the antithesis of the source comic book Hellblazer‘s blonde-haired Liverpudlian occult detective, Constantine has aged well over time, with both star Keanu Reeves and director Francis Lawrence using the intervening years to talk about how they’d like to stoke the fires on a sequel.
Now that it’s a reality, the Hunger Games director has been speaking with The Wrap about what he, Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, and Keanu Reeves have planned for their return to hell, and while there isn’t a script yet, Lawrence said “We have germs of ideas and dedication, and Keanu and I have been batting around for a while and we’ve always wanted to do it. It’s just that we finally gotten past the hurdle of now we can go ahead and, and really do it. Now we have to just roll up our sleeves and dive in. But we have lots of ideas.”
Permeating those ideas will be a drive to deliver a hard R-rated version of Constantine, with Lawrence saying that “one of the biggest things for me about the first one was we followed, per Warner Bros., the rules to make a PG-13 movie in terms of violence, blood, language, sexuality. But the ratings board gave us a hard R based on their the grey zone of intensity. And my big, big regret was that we have an R-rated movie that’s really a PG-13 movie, and if I was going to have to go have an R, I would have really made an R-rated movie. I would have made it much scarier and much more violent and I would have really made an R-rated movie.” He continued “The idea is this time, at least for me, is to really go at it and make a real R-rated Constantine which is, I think, what people always wanted originally, not the PG-13 version that just happens to get an R.”
Lawrence, who has just wrapped The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, revealed that Constantine 2 wouldn’t be his next project. Having also been announced as the director of another long-in-the-offing property with Netflix’s Bioshock adaptation, it might be a while before we see Keanu Reeves light up again.
Let us know what you think of 2005’s Constantine, and whether you’re looking forward to a sequel by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
