Every time somebody at DC gets fired, a Keanu Reeves fan somewhere lights a cigarette and whispers “Constantine 2.” This week, for once, that fan isn’t crazy.

A day after James Gunn and Peter Safran got shown the door at DC Studios, the guy who directed the 2005 Constantine is basically saying the quiet part out loud. Francis Lawrence told Collider that he and Keanu have been trying to get a sequel made for “20-something years,” that they have “an idea” and “a script,” and that, quote, “the people that were at DC were an impediment to us making it.”

Oof. Somebody get Gunn some ice.

What Lawrence actually said

To be fair to Lawrence, he opened with a disclaimer: “Not that I want anybody to lose their jobs, so this is not like a schadenfreude kind of thing.” Then he immediately did the most schadenfreude-adjacent thing possible, which is say he’s “now more hopeful as of yesterday’s news that maybe now there will be another opportunity.”

He was also clear that the hold-up isn’t the creative team. “It’s not me, it’s not Keanu, it’s not Akiva. J.J. [Abrams] is on it, as well. We all want to do it,” he said. The decision, in his words, is “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.'”

And here’s the part that matters for the DCU nerds already typing angry comments: Lawrence told Collider that if DC wants its own Constantine for the shared universe, the two could coexist. Think The Batman living next door to the DCU. Keanu’s chain-smoking LA exorcist doesn’t have to be canon with Superman. He just has to exist.

Wait, didn’t this already almost happen?

Kind of, yeah. Back in February 2025, Keanu told Inverse: “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, ‘OK.’ So, we’re going to try and write a script.” Akiva Goldsman was reported to be writing it, with J.J. Abrams producing.

Then it went quiet. In 2025, Gunn said on the BobaTalks podcast that he’d “discussed it on and off” with Keanu, “but I have not read any script yet.” So depending on who you believe, the sequel was either stuck in a drawer or stuck in a meeting. Same hell, different circle.

Who’s actually deciding now

Per Deadline, Gunn and Safran are out, and former Marvel exec Jeremy Latcham takes over DC on December 1, reporting to Skydance’s film bosses. That’s a lot more people who could say yes, and a lot more people who could say “hmm, let’s circle back.” Nobody at Warner or DC has said a single word about Constantine 2. Right now this is a director’s hopeful interview, not a greenlight. Do not pre-order your trench coat.

Lawrence isn’t exactly sitting around waiting, either. His The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping hits theaters November 20, so he’s got bigger fish this month.

Why we care way too much

Look, the 2005 Constantine got roughed up when it came out, and Hellblazer purists still yell about the blond Brit turning into a dark-haired American. Fine. Fair, even. But the movie has aged like a demon in a jar of holy water: weird, mean, gorgeous, and stacked with Tilda Swinton as Gabriel and Peter Stormare’s all-timer Satan. It got rediscovered, it got a 4K release, and it became one of those “wait, this rules?” movies a whole generation found on cable at 2 a.m.

Twenty years later, Keanu still wants to do it. The director still wants to do it. Goldsman and Abrams are attached. The only thing missing was somebody with keys to the building who actually picks up the phone. Maybe that’s Latcham. Maybe it’s nobody and we’re back here in 2031.

But for the first time in a while, the door to hell is cracked open a little. We’ll take it.

Rewatch it before the sequel talk heats up: Constantine (4K Ultra HD + Digital) on Amazon

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Sources:
– Variety, Nov 11, 2026: https://variety.com/2026/film/news/keanu-reeves-constantine-2-james-gunns-dc-exit-1236945816/
– Deadline, Nov 11, 2026: https://deadline.com/2026/11/constantine-francis-lawrence-james-gunn-peter-safran-dc-studios-1237220954/
– Latcham / Dec 1 details: our Nov 11 DC Studios shakeup draft (Deadline sourced)