“I wish I had a chance”: The sequel Keanu Reeves would love to make
Like almost every other action star in cinema, Keanu Reeves is no stranger to the world of sequels, even if he’s been less prolific in that regard than many of his contemporaries.
Sure, he played Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan four times in 31 years across a feature film trilogy and an animated series, headlined the first four instalments of The Matrix franchise as Neo, and will play John Wick for a fifth time in the upcoming spinoff Ballerina, but that’s a drop in the ocean compared to the likes of Vin Diesel, Sylvester Stallone, and Jason Statham.
Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break did get a remake, though, and Speed was followed up by one of the worst blockbusters in history after the original’s leading man wisely dodged a bullet, while Toy Story 4, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, and the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 3 have outlined how he doesn’t mind boarding somebody else’s property so long as it’s animated.
Throughout it all, there’s one role Reeves has been desperate to reprise, but the dominoes have yet to fall in the correct order. These days, an R-rated comic book adaptation starring the never-ending beacon of positivity in the lead sounds like a licence to print money, but any attempts to dust off Constantine for another round have continually struggled.
It did earn $230million at the box office back in 2005, but with its 20th anniversary fast approaching, time is surely running out. Reeves knows that better than most, admitting to Rotten Tomatoes how “I wish I had a chance to play Constantine” again, outlining that he wished “the producers had followed up on that more than they did”. The purists may have been up in arms at the blonde-haired and British title hero being played by the dark-haired and distinctly American star, but he’s far from the only one to have held out hope for a sequel.
He could still get his wish after it was officially announced in September 2022 that a Constantine follow-up was in active development at Warner Bros, with director Francis Lawrence set to return behind the camera alongside Reeves and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman joining the team to pen the script and produce.
However, when DC Comics underwent major restructuring in its film and television department that ended with Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn being appointed co-CEO, the trail went cold. There’s been barely a peep out of the proposed Constantine 2 since then, but with Joker laying out in no uncertain terms that R-rated films based on the company’s back catalogue of characters are more than capable of tearing it up at the box office, there’s still a chance things could come together somewhere down the line.
