CINEMA: According to Keanu Reeves no one wants to see him play Constantine again

Keanu Reeves has returned to many icon­ic roles recent­ly, from Neo in Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions to Ted in Bill and Ted Face the Music. But one role that no one asks him to return to, despite Reeves’ per­son­al desire, is that of John Con­stan­tine.

Speak­ing on The Late Show with Stephen Col­bert, Reeves was asked what oth­er past role he would like to reprise, know­ing that if he asked for it, he could prob­a­bly get it. But that’s not true, Reeves explained.

“That’s not true! It does hap­pen. I would love to play John Con­stan­tine from the movie Con­stan­tine again. Reeves added that while he had ‘tried’ to get a sec­ond Con­stan­tine movie off the ground with him in the role, Hol­ly­wood had aroused no interest.

Reeves played John Con­stan­tine, an exor­cist from the DC-Ver­ti­go uni­verse and a mem­ber of the Jus­tice League Dark, in a 2005 movie. Con­stan­tine in the comics faces more super­nat­ur­al and mag­i­cal threats than the reg­u­lar Jus­tice League typ­i­cal­ly does­n’t address. . with.

There have been crit­i­cisms of the film’s cast, name­ly Reeves — an Amer­i­can — play­ing the gruff British super­nat­ur­al hero. And while crit­ics were also not in love with the film at the time (it has 46% on Rot­ten Toma­toes), Con­stan­tine has gar­nered a cult fol­low­ing for its goth­ic visu­als and for being a super­hero film that deals direct­ly with reli­gion. Plus, the cast includ­ed deli­cious turns from acclaimed actors like Rachel Weisz, Til­da Swin­ton, and Peter Stormare.

Although Reeves no longer put him­self in Con­statine’s place, the char­ac­ter was briefly revived on tele­vi­sion. Welsh actor Matt Ryan played a more faith­ful ver­sion of the char­ac­ter on a short-lived NBC show and reprized the role mul­ti­ple times for The CW’s var­i­ous DC shows, includ­ing Arrow and Leg­ends of Tomorrow.

Con­sid­er­ing that DC is hap­py to play fast and free with its mul­ti­verse, even putting Ezra Miller’s Flash on the CW’s Flash series star­ring Grant Gustin, there’s no rea­son Reeves could­n’t replay Con­stan­tine along­side Matt Ryan.