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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Constantine. Say it isn't so.

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00:08 / 01.04.04

Thanks for the Gaiman link, Sax. I couldn't find the Constantine bit, but pretty much anything written by ol'Neil is balm for the soul (desperately needed after reading this thread

).

Personally, I always wanted to see Gary Oldman as John.

09:43 / 04.04.04

Gary Oldman would have been great about 10 years ago, but he is now a bad wizard for the kids. Paul Bettny would have been perfect. Can't understand why they don't just make a completely different film - if they are making Constantine and calling it Constantine to attract the Hellblazer fans, but then doing everything in their powers to make it so alien to Hellblazer fans as to make them hate the project, why not make one film called "Reeves beats the devil" or something inane, and then do a proper adaption that keeps true to the comic at at least some level.

Shame because the shots look quite well designed (I know it's not difficult to design a constume that is basically a shirt, tie, mac and cigarette, but still there's something there). Couldn't be Sean Bean, he's accent is to thick, and Sean Pertwee would have been okay, but Bettny get's (would have gotten) my vote.

04:41 / 14.05.04

The teaser trailer is out. And yeah, it pretty much looks as bad as it sounds.

"The holy shotgun? Yeah, there's a half-breed that kills a couple of the characters who are my friends so I'm seeking revenge. So, I put together this 'holy shotgun,' which again I think is kind of fun - 'killing with God.'" - Keanu Reeves on his brass, cross-shaped and Latin-inscribed weapon in Constantine

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:11 / 14.05.04

Dear God. Why is this taking so long? Can't they just release the fucking film so it can fade into history?
It's like having your teeth pulled really slowly.

09:22 / 14.05.04

constantine's sacramental shotgun? like the holy hand grenade in holy grail? wow - this is going to be the best film of all time isn't it?

11:35 / 14.05.04

The old 'specialised weapons' crap is being flogged to undeath, isn't it? Blade, Underworld, Van Helsing, LOEG etc etc. Where did the rot start? Was it From Dusk Til Dawn or can it be traced earlier?

11:39 / 14.05.04

since a young lost boy first whispered the immortal words:

'death by stereo'

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:04 / 14.05.04

There's the menorah-gun in The Holy Mountain...

17:13 / 14.05.04

This seems really fucking spectacularly dreadful, the trailer above made me physically cringe.

I'll almost certainly go and watch it though, when it comes out in the cinema - it looks SO shit that I don't honestly know if I can wait for the vid.

19:24 / 14.05.04

"Why do they keep on making movies that fuck up my favourite comics?"
"Fuck - this looks even worse than I expected!"
"Man, this is so bad. I'm going to go and see it, just to see how shit it is."

"Why do they keep on making movies that fuck up my favourite comics?"

20:56 / 14.05.04

There was an ad on the theatre call board at my school for auditions for an independent, super low budget, not for profit film version of Hellblazer out of protest for where this is going. I forgot to write everything down, for all I know the project's been abandoned, but still, it was an interesting protest.

04:38 / 12.06.04

Oh the humanity....it looks even worse than I would've thought.
Trailer

06:13 / 12.06.04

Why did they fuck it up so badly? I could've written a better Hellblazer film than this, much better. And I think my writing's shit.
It's so exasperating, there's some cracking stories to work with- what the hell went wrong?

It's rated a PG-13/12.

If I were making Hellblazer I'd be going for hardcore NC-17/18 ratings or bust. I'm talking full-on demon/archangel sex scenes including a close up of Gabriel's heart dripping in Ellie's gleeful hands.

06:24 / 12.06.04

Kiefer Sutherland, of course! I'd been wracking my brain for a good Constantine for ages.

Tim Roth would be my second choice.

Ewan McGregor might be OK but he's a bit too cute.

07:15 / 12.06.04

Kiefer Sutherland would be ass. He'd be a good American Constantine, but he'd be ass. Tim Roth, by contrast, is a great choice for a Brit JC, though he's not really tall enough.

Paul Bettany?

Anyhow, I just watched the trailer, and it looks so vague, generic, and dull. And the customized silver-streetsweeper is just ridiculous and entirely out of place. God. Brace for reviews, folks...

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:23 / 12.06.04

If we're in fantasyland, Robert Carlysle. But we're so not.

12:24 / 12.06.04

Yes, Robert Carlyle would have been a great Constantine.

13:05 / 12.06.04

URGH! This is fucking with my head. Somebody has to destroy the negatives of this film so no-one ever again has to endure Canoe's British accent, I mean, come ON, wasn't Dracula enough?
And anyone see Charles Band's Dr. Strange movie, Dr. Mordrid? Marvel said NO, but he did it anyway, and changed the names. "Without my amulet, I can't do anything. But I can still cast spells." FUCKING WITH MY HEAD, PEOPLE!

16:04 / 12.06.04

He won't thankfully be attempting an English accent as they have changed the nationality of the character to American and they have turned Chas from a married middle age man into a teenage sidekick.

For the record Paul Bettany would be the ideal man to play the real John Constantine but it ain't gonna happen.

19:19 / 12.06.04

Sometimes you have to wonder whether these Hollywood fuckwits go out of their way to pervert every aspect of the source material that was a likely contributing factor to its success. They should all burn, but they won't, so I'll just sit here and be queasy for a little while.

22:11 / 12.06.04

Ow. Oooh. That trailer sucked ass so hard I can now hold my appendix up to my eyes.

D Terminator XXXIII

10:13 / 13.06.04

*sniffsss around*

Definetely "Fuck - this looks even worse than I expected!" atm.

14:58 / 16.06.04

...how can you make Hellblazer into a movie, and at the end, not have a really really disturbing horror movie?

D Terminator XXXIII

07:13 / 17.06.04

Baz, say hello to Hollywood and the whoring itself to the mighty currency.

& vice versa.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:04 / 07.08.04

Okay... I promised myself I was gonna let this one go, but I just couldn't. Just did some Googling, and found this Hellblazer site, on which I learned many disheartening things (although it looks like he doesn't actually have a special car anymore, which is a plus).

"The movie is so cool- its like Superman meets Interview With a Vampire meets the Exorcist meets the Matrix" - Shia LaBeouf talking to Ellegirl about Constantine.

I bet that's just what Uncle Alan had in mind when he came up with the character.

Fuck Delano, fuck Ellis, fuck Azzarello... they obviously need to get Byrne in for the comics.

You know, the build-up to this movie is infinitely more frightening and disturbing than anything JC himself has ever had to face.

Tom Tit's Tot: A Girl!

23:03 / 18.10.04

Look:

"Using specially crafted weapons, such as the holy shotgun that shoots cross-shaped bullets and The Crucifier, a submachine gun that fires nails used in crucifixions, Constantine must travel to hell and back..."

The CRUCIFIER?!?!?

Jesus Wept Assblood.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

17:06 / 22.12.04

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!

chortle.

Haus of Mystery

18:34 / 22.12.04

although it looks like he doesn't actually have a special car anymore, which is a plus

Sez you. How could that not be good?

20:22 / 22.12.04

Dear God. Why is this taking so long? Can't they just release the fucking film so it can fade into history?
It's like having your teeth pulled really slowly.

That's really wierd, I was just looking at the picture above this post thinking something like : I just wanna see it, I'm sick of reading so many people ripping into it.

Then I saw that.

I'm not saying it's going to be good or defending this in anyway, I just want to watch it now. Fortunately for moi, I happen to be a big Keanu fan so that could soften any blow that could be on the way regarding the storyline, script etc.

Who the fuck wrote it and why can't they just give good comic writers free reign on some of these scripts? This is one of the things that really pisses me off. People in it for the money think they know what "the public" wants, but your not fucking writers, so how the fuck can you dictate how it's going to be written?

Then so many of these films flop and these people are puzzled. Well the anserz starin yu in the fayce ain't it? Give the scripts to the people who write good comics for you all year round for fucks sake, and leave them be if you do!

I mean it's not exactly quantum physics is it?

Here's hoping as usual anyway.

20:30 / 22.12.04

Well fuck me Garth Ennis and Jamie Delano(?) have writing credits on it. I wonder how much they got fucked around though.

Haus of Mystery

23:02 / 22.12.04

Give the scripts to the people who write good comics for you all year round for fucks sake

I don't think that's necessarily the solution either. Frank Miller wrote 'Robocop 2' and that was a load of donkey toss. I can't think of many comic writers who've written successful screenplays. Sure, you hear Mozzer and Ellis talkimg about how they've got things in the pipeline, but none of them ever manifest.

I think the problem is simply that Constantine is not a great idea for a film. To try and compress his sprawling character and history into a two hour 'Action/horror' (shudder) movie is a waste of time. It'd make a great British TV show (and indeed Joss Whedon pretty much pinched the character to create Ethan Rahne, the most under-used charcter in Buffy).

Ultimately it's going to suck, because those involved seem to have completely missed the point. Which makes you think: Why bother making the bastard in the first place if you're going to do your damnedest to alienate the only people who might conceivably give a toss about the character in the first place.

02:59 / 23.12.04

Who's Ethan Rahne in Buffy? I thought I really knew my Buffy shit but I have no idea who you're talking about.

04:18 / 23.12.04

Google is your friend. Scroll down a bit, wierdly enough, the guy that first got Angel working with Buffy is in the first couple of pictures.

He was one of Giles's old occult buddy's from this crazy island. I can't remember exactly why he came back but I think I remember him being around when Giles had to face the consequences of an old ritual he'd done years ago as an occultist. An also that the character was a prick.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:40 / 23.12.04

It'd make a great British TV show

Indeed it would. What I always found to be one of the strengths of the comic at the beginning, and which can now often be a weakness, was the gradual unveiling of the different aspects of JC's personality and life (now it's been running so long, and writers still do this, I'm often left with a nagging feeling that JC has experienced far too much backstory to possibly fit into his forty-something life),#
And that's a format that is perfect for television. In a movie, you've got two hours, and you need a big reveal and some kind of closure. Different, very different.

Oh fuck. For a moment there I managed to kid myself that was the only reason why this was gonna be toss. Then I remembered it was Keanu fucking Reeves again.
What a shitty way to start the morning.

15:08 / 23.12.04

I saw a theatrical trailer for this last night and the whole thing looks like it might not be entirely awful.

Except for Keanu who looks like he's entirely awful.

That said, I definitely want to see it, I'm fascinated to see how they're gonna turn this into a 2 hour movie without completely ruining it.

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