Constantine Director Had To Cut Out Michelle Monaghan’s Subplot — Twice

Michelle Monaghan, best known for her roles in things like the Mission: Impossible franchise and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, had a tiny role in the 2005 Keanu Reeves film Constantine — but that wasn’t always the case. And while it’s been known for years that many of Monaghan’s scenes were removed from Constantine, what fans heard today during a reunion panel at Comic-Con @ Home, her story was actually cut from the final version — twice. Actually, it wasn’t the same story that was being removed and re-added, but instead a story cut, and then new scenes written, filmed, and cut again. Ouch.

During the panel, director Francis Lawrence admitted that it was always hard to tell an actor who had performed well, that their work would be cut from the final version of the movie for time or continuity reasons. It’s another step harder to do it again.

“It sucked calling her — I think we had real story reasons for doing it, it was not her performance; she’s a fantastic actress and we really liked the work she did,” Lawrence explained. “But Constantine was in a relationship with Michelle’s character in the movie and we decided that Constantine was better alone and feeling like he didn’t have a companion he could lean on and have a relationship with. We got to shoot the extra footage — because we liked Michelle so much and the character she played so much we actually tried to fashion new scenes so the problem was, I had to tell her that we were cutting all of her scenes before we got to do this pickup stuff. I then, Akiva and I came up with some new scenes and I was like ‘Hey, we came up with some new scenes, we’re gonna shoot some stuff with you,’ and she’s like ‘great!’ And she came in and we shot it, and tried it, and it didn’t work and I had to call her again, a second time. The worst part was, the only piece that stayed in the movie was this moment at the end where Constantine lights the sprinklers which start spraying the holy water, and she gets hit, and starts to burn, and she says, surprised, ‘holy water?’ And she hated that line. She hated that moment, and it ended up being the only moment of her in the movie after two attempts at various scenes.”

Unfortunately for fans who heard sequel rumors online and tuned in to see if there would be an announcement, no such thing happened — althoguh they did admit that they are always still asked about it by fans, and Goldsman said that they had so many ideas over the years that they could start one “tomorrow” if given the green light.

The next DC film will be Wonder Woman 1984, which will be in theaters on October 2. Reeves will next be seen in Bill & Ted Face the Music, which is currently slated for a late August release. Fans can get more details on both this month, with Wonder Woman 1984 having a presentation at DC’s FanDome virtual convention while Comic Con International’s Comic-Con@Home event will feature Bill & Ted Face the Music.