Constantine's director finally said who blocked the Keanu Reeves sequel — they just got fired

Francis Lawrence was doing press for Sunrise on the Reaping this week when Collider asked about Constantine 2, and he finally named the obstacle. His words, one day after the DC regime change:

"The people that were at DC were an impediment to us making it."

He didn't stop there. The impediment, he specified, was never Keanu Reeves and never producer Akiva Goldsman; J.J. Abrams "is on it, as well"; the team has an idea and a script; and after "the news as of yesterday," he has renewed hope. The sequel needs one thing — someone at "Paramount, Warner, or whoever now runs DC" to say yes — and the two men who spent four years not saying it cleared their desks this week.

Four years of no

The timeline makes Lawrence's bluntness easy to decode. Warner Bros. announced Constantine 2 in September 2022 — Reeves starring, Lawrence directing, Goldsman writing — to open-armed coverage and two decades of pent-up fan demand. Two months later, James Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC Studios, and the announced sequel entered the drawer it never left.

What the Gunn era did greenlight says the rest: a separate Hellblazer film with Francis Galluppi directing and no Keanu Reeves was in development right up until the firing. Gunn's DC wanted the character; it just didn't want the version 2005 audiences made a cult hit and Reeves spent 20 years publicly asking to replay.

Constantine 2 was announced in September 2022. The two executives who ran DC for every day since never let it shoot. Both are out as of December 1.

The new math, and the catch

On November 9, Skydance announced Jeremy Latcham as DC Studios president and chief creative officer, starting December 1 — a founding Marvel Studios hand (Iron Man, The Avengers, the Holland Spider-Man films) who, in a twist, produced Guardians of the Galaxy alongside Gunn. Every project Gunn kept shelved is now someone else's call, and Constantine 2 — script in hand, star willing, director openly lobbying — is the first title to campaign for itself in public.

Don't miss: Clayface marketing budget: why a $44 million movie still can't break even at the box office

The catch is the queue. TheWrap reports Latcham is expected to put Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash at the front of the line — the franchise rebuilds a new boss gets judged on, not a 21-year-late R-rated sequel about a chain-smoking exorcist.

So Lawrence got his "new hope" the way DC fans always get it: with three bigger capes standing between him and a greenlight. Still, for the first time since 2022 the obstacle is a release calendar rather than the men running the studio, and after four years of structural no, Lawrence will take a crowded maybe.

Previously we wrote: If a profitable $618 million Superman isn't a hit, what DC movie will Skydance ever call one?