Superhero movies are all the rage. Even more so are ones that are “R”-rated. With the success of Deadpool and Logan, studios are off an running with their own adult-themed hero films. However, this isn’t a new trend as Hollywood dabbled before in films like New Line Cinema’s Blade and Warner Bros. Pictures’ Constantine (2005). The latter, directed by Francis Lawrence, starred Keanu Reeves as a supernatural detective.
In a new interview, Lawrence reflects back to the making of Constantine, and how he would approach it differently today. The most interesting is that he reveals that he was basically a work-for-hire and had no say over the casting. If he were to have tackled it today, Reeves wouldn’t have starred:
“Wow. It’s a tricky question. Now I’ve made seven movies, that was my first. I think there’s definite story issues, I would change some things there,” he explained. “I would definitely give it more levity, things like that. It’s tricky because if I’m starting from scratch I would have had him, like in the material, be blonde and English. Right? I wasn’t the first one hired on the movie, so it’s a whole different thing, but it’s tricky because I love Keanu and I think he did a great job in the movie and all of that, but it’s a tough tough thing.”
Interestingly, he also suggests that the story gets overly convoluted in the third act:
“I think the biggest things I would change are in the story, I think it gets too bogged down in supernatural gobbledygook at the end of the movie.”
Because Constantine was given an “R” by the MPAA, he wishes he had taken things even further:
“If I’d known we were getting an ‘R’ I would have really made an ‘R’-rated movie. We followed all the ‘PG-13’ rules, but still got an ‘R’ so it’s not really an ‘R’. That’s what I would suggest.”
While Constantine may not be getting his own film anytime soon, he is included in the planned Justice League Dark adaptation over at Warner Bros.
