Francis Lawrence

If Francis Lawrence had a fresh start on ‘Constantine‘ these days he would have made his movie quite a bit differently. The movie not only hasn’t aged well but wasn’t a hit with audiences or fans of the comics and it looks like there were quite a few factors at play. While Lawrence stresses that he jumped into directing his first movie on material that someone else had started, there are a few areas he would have done differently.

According to the director:

“Now I’ve made seven movies, that was my first. I think there’s definite story issues; I would change some things there. I would definitely give it more levity, things like that. It’s tricky because if I’m starting from scratch I would have had him, like in the material, be blonde and English. Right? I wasn’t the first one hired on the movie, so it’s a whole different thing, but it’s tricky because I love Keanu and I think he did a great job in the movie and all of that, but it’s a tough, tough thing. I think the biggest things I would change are in the story; I think it gets too bogged down in supernatural gobbledygook at the end of the movie. If I’d known we were getting an R, I would have really made an R-rated movie. We followed all the PG-13 rules, but still got an R so it’s not really an R. That’s what I would suggest.”

So, the key points would have been having either Keanu dye his hair and added in an accent or get a Brit to play the role. I’m behind that idea. Also, using the material to make an actual R-Rated movie instead of the PG-13 version of an actual R rated movie would have helped the film a lot. Oh, and changing around that “supernatural gobbledygook” which could have just used a bit of streamlining.

Do you agree that these changes would have made ‘Constantine’ a better movie? What would you have done differently with the film short of a full re-write? Share your thoughts below!

Source: Coming Soon