Keanu Reeves Reportedly Not Happy With Scripts For 'Constantine' Sequel
Actor Peter Stormare, who played Satan in the first Constantine film, shared that Keanu Reeves is not happy with the current script for the sequel.
Stormare spoke with The Direct about the sequel and shared, “It's a lot of back and forth, because... I think Keanu [Reeves], which I know pretty good, is not so happy with the scripts and usually what comes out of the studios...”
“Because the first one wasn't that successful in the beginning, it became a sleeper and became a cult movie, and now it is one of the biggest cult movies ever,” he continued. “But to do a sequel, the studios want to have, you know, cars flying in the air. They want to have people doing flip-flops and fighting action scenes.”
In contrast, Reeves has a different vision for the film, Stormare explained, “And I think Keanu says, 'I've done 'John Wick.' This movie is spiritual. It's about demons and regular people. And I wanted to keep it that way.'“
“And we talked about that,” Stormare added. “I want to do God coming down exactly the same way, but in a black suit and looking more or less like Lucifer from the first one. I'm 12 years older, so it's going to be hard to, you know, completely imitate the first movie. But, I think from Keanu, he wants to do a sequel that is very close to the first one."
Stormare emphasized that Reeves does not want the film to turn into an action film, “I think he wants to do his character again, Constantine, as grounded as it was in the first one. It took a long time for you to become a cult movie, it really worked, and it will work on the audience again. You don't have to add a lot of action and shootouts. You have other movies. Don't turn it into big Marvel... [Don't turn it] into us flying around in harnesses all the time and shooting each other up. Don't bring in the big guns. Let it be.”
However, Stormare shared that he had not seen the script for the film and this was just what he was hearing from Reeves, “That is just hearsay from him, you know, and it's trying to be very secretive. As we say, both me and him, just do the first movie again and add some other elements, and you have a sequel.”
He then offered The Godfather 2 as a comparison, “The Godfather 2 was a sequel that was built on number one. They are similar. You can actually see number one and two together, and they stick together. So, don't do a completely different movie, then it won't hold together. And I think that's where we are, yeah.”
Back in February, Reeves informed Inverse that DC Studios had greenlit their story idea and they had begun working on a script. He said, “We've been trying to make this film for over a decade, and we just recently put a story together and pitched it to DC Studios and they said, ‘Okay.’ So, we're going to try and write a script.”
As for what to expect from the story, Reeves kept his cards close to his chest, but did share, “John Constantine's going to be tortured even more.”
What do you make of Stormare’s comments?
NEXT: Rumor: James Gunn's 'Superman' Significantly Altered After Test Screenings
It's rather sad (and revealing) when stars such as Cavill and Reeves care more about the source material than the ones writing or directing (of course, the money people have never cared much about the source, no surprise there).
The modern sequel to The Matrix series was pretty horrible and the tone was similar to the trilogy. Keeping the theme consistent isn't going to help make it better. It's the story and the immersion that's important in fantasy. Without both it's just another Hellboy, boring slop.