Here’s a quick update for all of the Constantine movie fans out there. Last week, director Francis Lawrence gave an update on the status of the sequel to the movie, which came out in 2005 and starred Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Shia LeBeouf, Djimon Hounsou, and Tilda Swinton. According to Lawrence, Constantine 2 got held up by the WGA strike. The good news is that Reeves is still in. The bad news is that the script hasn’t been written yet.
“So Constantine 2 got obviously held up by the writers strike,” Lawrence told me. “And we had to jump through a bunch of hurdles to get control of the character again, because other people had control of the Vertigo stuff. We have control. Keanu and [screenwriter] Akiva Goldsman and I have been in meetings and have been hashing out what we think the story is going to be, and there’s more meetings of those that have to happen–the script has to be written–but really hoping that we get to do Constantine 2, and make a real rated R version of it.”
Since 2005, there have been a few different attempts to get a Constantine franchise off the ground, including the 2014 NBC TV series starring Matt Ryan that only lasted for one season. Ryan reprised his role for The CW’s Arrowverse shows, including The Flash, Arrow, and Batwoman as well as HBO Max’s Batwoman. Last year, there were reports that J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions was developing a new Constantine television series that would be a part of the DC’s Justice League Dark franchise. Four scripts were reportedly written and a lead actor was in talks for the role, but recent reports say that’s now been scrapped. Whether or not a Constantine 2 movie starring Reeves actually happens remains to be seen, but it sounds like the most important parties involved are all interested in still making it happen.
