It was recently announced that the 2005 film Constantine would finally be getting a sequel. Excitingly enough, both star Keanu Reeves and director Francis Lawrence are returning for the new film. And, furthermore, Francis Lawrence reveals that he’ll have a different mindset going into the sequel. While the first film was R-rated, it wasn’t exactly produced with that rating in mind, and so Lawrence hopes to change that with the sequel. As he puts it, Constantine 2 will be “real R-rated.”
He explained as much while speaking with The Wrap and explained that Warner Bros made sure the first film was made as “a PG-13 movie in terms of violence, blood, language, sexuality.” Nevertheless, it still received a R-rating due to the MPAA’s “gray zone of intensity.” Now he wants to direct Constantine 2 with the R-rating in mind from the beginning.
Here’s what he had to say:
“One of the biggest things for me about the first one was we followed, per Warner Bros., the rules to make a PG-13 movie in terms of violence, blood, language, sexuality. But the ratings board gave us a hard R based on their the gray zone of intensity. And my big, big regret was that we have an R-rated movie that’s really a PG-13 movie. And if I was going to have to go have an R, I would have really made an R-rated movie. I would have made it much scarier and much more violent and I would have really made an R-rated movie.”
“The idea is this time, at least for me, is to really go at it and make a real R-rated Constantine which is, I think, what people always wanted originally, not the PG-13 version that just happens to get an R,” he noted.
Furthermore, he also insisted that Constantine’s dry sense of humor will be more included in the film as well. This should certainly be another exciting spin when compared with the first film’s take on the character. As he explained:
“I think John Constantine is a funny character in a darkly comic kind of way and I would want to definitely add more of that sarcastic, cynical sense of humor to the story.”
Hopefully we’ll have more details soon. As for now, it certainly seems like everyone involved has the right frame of mind going into the sequel. Of course, we’ll just have to wait and see how the production of the film continues.
The screenplay for the new sequel to Constantine will be written by Akiva Goldsman. He will also produce the film via his own Weed Road Pictures, along with Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams and Hannah Minghella. Lorenzo DiBonaventura and Erwin Stoff are attached as executive producers on the project.
A release date has yet to be given, but fans can stay tuned to ScreenGeek for more updates as we have them. In the meantime, it sounds like this unexpected yet highly-anticipated sequel will be worth the wait. Especially if Constantine 2 is as R-rated as director Francis Lawrence hopes to make it.