Constantine director wants to make the sequel R-rated

The next Constantine movie will be R-rated as long as director Francis Lawrence has his way, and that news is going to be music to the ears of fans who have waited for adaptations to lean into the darkness and violence of the original Hellblazer comic book.

Constantine's returned to the small screen in Netflix's The Sandman, this time played by Jenna Coleman. Shock and horror, this traditionally male character is now a woman. Just wait til you hear what nationality Constantine actually is in DC's comic and compare that to the 2005 movie. Anyway. The sequel was announced in late September and will see Keanu Reeves reprise his role as the snarky exorcist, with Lawrence signed on too. The screenplay will be the work of Akiva Goldsman and he will produce the movie with J. J. Abrams and Hannah Minghella.

Check out the trailer for Constantine below!

While speaking to The Wrap about his new movie Slumberland, Lawrence revealed that he has always carried a torch for Constantine but was waiting for the right time to return to the character. “All I know is that Keanu and Akiva and I have been wanting to do it forever,” he said. "We finally gotten past the hurdle of now we can go ahead and, and really do it. Now we have to just roll up our sleeves and dive in. But we have lots of ideas."

Even though the story is in its early stages of development, there is one major departure from the original that the director wants. “One of the biggest things for me about the first one was we followed, per Warner Bros., the rules to make a PG-13 movie in terms of violence, blood, language, sexuality. But the ratings board gave us a hard R based on their the grey zone of intensity. And my big, big regret was that we have an R-rated movie that’s really a PG-13 movie,” continued Lawrence.

“And if I was going to have to go have an R, I would have really made an R-rated movie. I would have made it much scarier and much more violent and I would have really made an R-rated movie.” Clearly a lot to look forward to, if the story cuts the mustard for Warner Bros.