Francis Lawrence, the director who helmed 2005’s Keanu Reeves-led “Constantine” movie, admitted he had “renewed hope” for his sequel amid James Gunn and Peter Safran’s exit from DC Studios.
“Not that I want anybody to lose their jobs, so this is not like a schadenfreude kind of thing, but I will say that we’ve been trying to make ‘Constantine 2’ for 20-something years,” Lawrence told Collider on his hope for “Constantine 2.” “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.”
He added: “So, we are now more hopeful as of yesterday’s news that maybe now there will be another opportunity. But again, we’ve been trying to make this for 20-something years, and there’s always been obstacles in the road to making it, and it’s not me, it’s not Keanu, it’s not [producer] Akiva [Goldsman]. J.J. [Abrams] is on it, as well.”
Per Lawrence, who is promoting his latest installment in the “Hunger Games” franchise, “Sunrise on the Reaping,” the original “Constantine” team wants “to do it.”
“So, it’s really going to be people at Paramount, Warner, whoever’s running DC now, getting everybody on board to say, like, ‘Hey, we can do a sequel of our version of ‘Constantine,’” he noted.
Lawrence even pitched that the now Skydance-led DC Studios could have both his “Constantine 2” movie and a new take on the Hellblazer comic-book series, adding, “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’ … 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.”
Just last week, DC Studios was said to have a new “Constantine” film in the works, with “Evil Dead Wrath” filmmaker Francis Galluppi to helm the Hellblazer adaptation. However, it’s status remains unclear following the dismissal of Gunn and Safran, with new boss Jeremy Latcham expected to prioritize films for Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash and other heavyweights moving forward.
A representative for DC Studios did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
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