Constantine 2: What Could the Long-Awaited DC Sequel Be About?

While 2009’s Constantine wasn’t a massive financial or critical hit, the movie has earned a cult following in the years since its release, and at present, Warner Bros. Discovery and DC are working to bring a sequel to life. That movie would bring back Keanu Reeves in the title role, although nothing else is known about plans for the story. The first Constantine also starred Shia LaBeouf as Chas, Peter Stormare as Lucifer, Tilda Swinton as Gabriel, and Rachel Weisz as Isabel Dodson, a love interest for Constantine. Only Stormare has specifically talked about returning for a sequel (and that was years ago, before the sequel was real).

More recently, one of the film’s producers revealed that there is finally a completed script draft for the sequel, saying with tongue in cheek that he was “scared” to read the thing. Given how elements of many of the best Hellblazer comics were blended for the first movie, some have wondered what comics could be inspiring the new iteration.

Since John Constantine is now part of the broader DC Universe, there are theoretically hundreds of new comics that could inform the sequel — but it seems pretty safe to assume that won’t happen. Not only is there already a new DC Universe coming to the big screen, but rushing to team him up with the Justice League Dark would kind of defeat the purpose of making a sequel to the Reeves movie. Of course, there’s at least one element of post-New 52 Constantine that could easily make its way into the movie: a relationship with Zatanna.

Zatanna is another DC character who has had a number of false starts in Hollywood over the years, with rumors about her own movie at one point and plenty of variations on the Justice League and Justice League Dark rumors, too. If a Constantine 2 happens without Rachel Weisz’s character, it would not be difficult to imagine them casting a Zatanna character who could play a similar role in a potential sequel to the one Weisz played in the original.

In both the Constantine TV series and John’s stories on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, his old band (and the shenanigans he got up to in those days) played a pretty big role. Since the first movie dealt with the consequences of John’s bad decisions as a smoker heading into middle age, it would stand to reason that a second movie could touch on the Mucous Membrane era — hell, Keanu Reeves can even play music for real! — and John’s greatest mistake in life, accidentally damning Astra Logue (his friends’ daughter) to Hell. That moment tortures John for the rest of his life (even if, in Legends, he got a chance to kinda-sorta make up for it). Dealing with the fallout from that is inherently a clever premise for a story, and while it was just recently mined for conflict on Legends, it does seem like the kind of thing the film could easily take in a different direction.

One tantalizing idea would be to include a version of the “Hard Time” story from Hellblazer in the movie. In it, John is stuck in an American prison, and working on a secret plan that only comes together toward the end for the audience. The story was one of the first tales by Brian Azzarello, the first-ever American writer to tackle Constantine on an ongoing basis, and its darkness and brutality made up for the lack of traditional supervillains and trenchcoats. Of course, the lack of John’s customary wardrobe in a movie is likely never going to happen, since there are really only so many opportunities to see him suited up on the big screen.

Another story that seems like a great idea for a stand-alone movie is Jamie Delano’s story of “The Family Man,” a serial killer whose path crossed with Constantine’s. You could dig into the story itself for some great character development, or you could go the safer route and just write a whole new movie around the premise. The idea — that John had to compromise his morals and really get dirty in order to take down somebody who’s a monster even without magic — is one that could really resonate with a post-John Wick Keanu Reeves, and it’s one that could make for a cheaper movie to produce, too.