Dont Tell NetflixDont Tell Netflix

By George Robbins

The DCEU, or DC Extended Universe, may be newer in terms of what movies have been made over the past decade or so that are a part of it, but DC movies are nothing new. Movies that are based on DC characters have been a thing for years even if many people haven’t exactly realized that those movies were actually based on those characters. One such character that casual fans of the comics may not realize is actually from the DC universe is the character John Constantine whose entire existence revolves around hunting demons. Like the Marvel universe, the DC universe contains demons that come from those universes’ versions of Hell and they try and interfere with the lives of those living on Earth. In the DC universe Constantine is the one who fights back against those demons, but it never really started off as anything other than necessity to try and redeem his soul.

There is a reason that the character is not really a hero in the true sense of the word and he is instead labeled an anti-hero. He only ever does things for his own self interest and if he happens to save someone’s life, then good, but he really isn’t trying to save anyone other than himself most of the time. Constantine has been nothing but unlucky from a young age due to the magic that he had learned that would go on to ruin whatever attempts he would try to make at a better life. This is what is seen in the comic book version of the character and he maintains his work as a hero-for-hire just to get by and make a living. Though, this is not the only version of the character and we see this with the movie that was aptly named ‘Constantine.’

In the movie, the titular character is played by Keanu Reeves and the plot of the film plays out differently than the comic book character he is based upon, but this doesn’t mean the root character isn’t there. In the movie he doesn’t use magic the way that the comic book version does, but he is a very skilled exorcist that knows how to send demons back to Hell. However, his motivations for doing so are much more aligned to how his character is truly portrayed when they show the reason why he wants to help people and fight demons. He believes that by fighting demons he will be able to redeem his soul which is bound to Hell when he took his own life when he was younger. Constantine was saved and brought back, but the experience had left him marked to always return.

More recent iterations have kept more in-line with how the character really is in the comics and gave him his ability to use magic as well as showed his interactions with other hero and villain characters. With this in mind, it seems to make a lot of sense that in order to show people what the character is really about, a movie could end up being made in this era based more on the comic version of the character. As of now he has had portrayals in the ArrowVerse and in the ‘Justice League Dark’ animated films, but his comic character hasn’t really been seen on the big screen. It seems that this may be destined to change as, reportedly, there is a new ‘Constantine’ movie in the works over at Warner Bros. with J.J. Abrams as the possible producer for the film. They may reboot the original film, but maybe we will get the true version of John Constantine after all.