It would be nice to have a real Hellblazer film, it seems like a lot of people on this thread (those who mention US actors), don’t really appreciate the irony of naming a film ‘Constantine’ instead of Hellblazer and then removing all trace of the character John Constantine.
Sure, the Constantine film wasn’t bad, but it didn’t contain the real John Constantine, it contained some sort of bland american metrosexual with the same name.
So, a decent real scouse actor, Jason Isaacs would do, David Morrissey, one of the McGanns perhaps, shit even Craig Charles would be more suitable than Reeves.
And get a scriptwriter to make him a tricky nasty doublecrossing bastard (who smokes and drinks heavily).
(A cameo from Swamp Thing wouldn’t be bad either).
Any actor with blond hair, and then dye his hair dark brown for the role so that thousands of fanboy heads would explode yet again over irrelevant minutia.
The constant complaining about “Constantine is blond!” prevented one iota of sympathy from me for the angry fanboys. (The pronunciation of his name is another one, but even as irrelevant and stupid as that complaint is it can’t hold a candle to the hair color one.)
While we’re at it, make sure it’s a British actor doing an American accent. Bonus points if it’s a California surfer accent.
If it’s John Constantine in the present day, than yes, Sting is the obvious choice. John is more or less the same age as Sting, and supposedly his original visual design was modeled in part on Sting.
If it’s a younger John, then someone else.
Casting Alex Winter would be hilarious for about the first day of shooting.
I think Sting is author canon but I don’t see it. I’m thinking Daniel Craig for some reason.
The movie was fine, and Keanu was fine, he just wasn’t in any way, shape, or form like the Constantine of the original material. And the actor was so inherently wrong to play that character that no amount of accent, hair dye, and good acting would change that.
I guess the Hollywood number crunchers know better than me, but I don’t see the need for Americanizing adaptations. Yes fine, speak English, that’s a reasonable concession, but there’s no reason to change the characters, setting, and aesthetics. Harry Potter made billions. Love Actually did just fine. I don’t think a foreign setting should affect the box office unless it involves subtitles.