When Keanu Reeves first starred as DC Comics’ magical anti-hero John Constantine in 2005’s Constantine (Rotten at 46%), some fans didn’t know what to make of it. It was based on what was then perceived as a relatively obscure character (if one wasn’t familiar with the character’s long-running Hellblazer comic book), and it came out just one year after Guillermo del Toro’s similarly themed comic book movie Hellboy (Certified Fresh at 81%). Constantine wasn’t a box office success (earning $75 million domestic against a budget of $100 million), but the film seemed to spark something of a cult following. Since 2005, the title character got his own TV show in 2014 starring Matt Ryan, who later played the character in various “Arrowverse” shows, and a gender swapped Constantine was also a character in Netflix’s recent The Sandman (Fresh at 87%) series. (And that’s without listing John Constantine’s various appearances in animation and video games.) All of this, plus the perceived need for Warner Bros. to find new DC Comics projects for their upcoming slate, may have inspired their recent decision to start development on a Constantine sequel, which will bring back Keanu Reeves as John Constantine and director Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games franchise). Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, whose previous experience with DC Comics properties includes TV’s Titans (Fresh at 86%) and Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever (Rotten at 39%) and Batman & Robin (Rotten at 12%), is now working on the Constantine sequel’s screenplay. Fans may have to wait a bit for the sequel, though, as Francis Lawrence already has a busy slate that includes the currently filming prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the just announced Sublime rock musical biopic (see below), and the BioShock video game adaptation announced just a few weeks ago.
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