For fans who've been waiting two decades for a Constantine sequel, the latest news feels like a demon finally answered a prayer. Director Francis Lawrence has confirmed that the recent shake-up at DC Studios has given him "renewed hope" for Constantine 2, the long-gestating follow-up to the 2005 cult favorite starring Keanu Reeves.
In an exclusive interview with Collider's Steve Weintraub, Lawrence opened up about how the departure of James Gunn and Peter Safran from their roles as co-heads of DC Studios could finally clear the path for the sequel. The change comes after Skydance announced on November 9 that Jeremy Latcham, who previously worked with Gunn on Guardians of the Galaxy, will step in as president and chief creative officer on December 1.
"We've been trying to make Constantine 2 for 20-something years, and we have an idea, and we have a script, and we've been wanting to make it, and the people that were at DC were an impediment to us making it," Lawrence explained. "So, we are now more hopeful as of yesterday's news that maybe now there will be another opportunity."
Lawrence emphasized that the obstacle was never the creative team. "It's not me, it's not Keanu, it's not Akiva. J.J. [Abrams] is on it, as well. We all want to do it," he said. "So, it's really going to be people at Paramount, Warner, whoever's running DC now, getting everybody on board to say, 'Hey, we can do a sequel of our version of Constantine.'"
The director also addressed the possibility that DC might want a different John Constantine for its shared universe. "Personally, I don't even care if somebody has a plan for some sort of shared universe, and they want to do another version of Constantine," Lawrence said. "If they just let us do the sequel to our version, they can coexist. So, I have renewed hope as of yesterday that there might be some possibility for forward movement there."
One thing Lawrence is certain about: the sequel will be a hard-R. The original film, despite being made with a PG-13 in mind, was slapped with an R rating, which still frustrates the director. "We followed all the rules to make a PG-13 movie, and we got hit with an R," he recalled. "They told us, 'You can't do anything about it. It's going to be an R no matter what.' We tried to fight them on it, and they said, 'Nope. It's an R,' but really, it's an R-rated PG-13 movie, which pisses me off." That experience led to a clear decision: "When we do this next time, we're making the hard-R version of Constantine."
Budget constraints are also on Lawrence's mind. He acknowledged that he and Reeves would need to be flexible with their usual fees to get the film made. "This is not the kind of movie that I would charge full freight and Keanu could charge full freight," he said. "It's something we have to do because we love and want to take a gamble on it, and do it responsibly. And so we've been thinking about that same idea for 20 years, that we're not going to do it for $100 million. We have to be scrappy about it."
With a script by Akiva Goldsman and J.J. Abrams producing, the pieces are in place. All that's needed now is a green light from the new DC regime. For now, Lawrence's renewed hope is the strongest signal yet that Constantine 2 might finally escape development hell.
Fans of supernatural action can also look forward to other upcoming projects, like The Terminator's HBO Max dominance and the Clash of the Titans 4K restoration. But for now, all eyes are on Constantine.
