With the merger of Skydance and Warner Bros., numerous changes are taking place at both companies. Perhaps the most important of all of them so far is that James Gunn has stopped being the boss of the DC cinematic universe. Although he seems to be at peace with the idea, and while that may mean the cancellation of as many as three Batman films, there are those who see an opportunity in this firing: director Francis Lawrence.
A director who sees opportunities everywhere
He told Collider that he believes that with the firing of Gunn and Safran there is a possibility they will allow him to make a sequel to Constantine, his adaptation of Hellraiser with Keanu Reeves. According to him, “it’s not that I want anyone to lose their job, so it’s not a matter of gloating over other people’s misfortune, but I will say that we’ve been trying to make Constantine 2 for more than twenty years.” He also reiterated that “we have an idea and a script, and we’ve wanted to make it for a while. The people who were at DC were preventing us from doing it.”
That’s why he says “after yesterday’s news, we now have more hope that perhaps another opportunity will arise. But, again, we’ve been trying to get this made for more than twenty years, and obstacles have always come up along the way. (…) So, in the end, it will depend on the people at Paramount, Warner, and whoever is in charge of DC now, on whether they can get everyone on board and saying something like: ‘Hey, we can make a sequel to our version of Constantine’.”
What’s the problem? That the person who will be in charge will be Jeremy Latchman, producer of Christian and conservative films, who actively uses generative AI in them, and who says he wants to make superhero films for his religious audience. So it seems that a sequel to a film about an atheist and progressive wizard who makes deals not only with Lucifer, but also with as many as two other great demonic dukes, and wants to go to heaven, but not out of Christian conviction, but to avoid hell, probably leaves Safran no closer to making his sequel.
