We here at Hollywood North Magazine strive to give you the best in Canadian film and television coverage, and this past week has been particularly active with stories involving Canucks, with perhaps the most striking being that none other than Martin Scorsese blaming Seth Rogen for his failed attempt at a historical epic centering on Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra.
In an interview with his daughter Francesca for the Tribecca series Crafty, Scorsese revealed that he had a script and Jolie was on-board, saying, “It was gonna be really wild.” However, according to the legendary filmmaker:
“Remember we were gonna do Cleopatra at one point, and then they made fun of Kim Jong-un, and he got mad and he blew up everybody at Columbia. Seth Rogen, right? And then [Kim] got mad, and [it] ruined Cleopatra.”
Scorsese is, of course, referencing 2014’s The Interview, which caused something of an international crisis, in that it depicted a journalist (James Franco) and his producer (Rogen) going to North Korea under the ruse of interviewing its brutal dictator Kim Jong-un, when they have in fact been recruited by the US government to assassinate Kim. Unfortunately, as Scorsese notes, the North Korean despot “doesn’t have a sense of humour,” which led to a state-sponsored major Sony hack in addition to terroristic threats, concluding that Rogen “ruined everything.”
However, it should be noted that Scorsese says this in good humour, as he has a working relationship with Rogen, with the famed filmmaker playing a fictional version of himself in the Emmy-winning TV show The Studio opposite Rogen, who, as it happens, plays a studio executive that cancels a movie on Scorsese. It’s hard to say if this was inspired in any way by the whole debacle with The Interview, but Scorsese at least has a sense of humour about it…unlike a certain Kim!
In decidedly less amusing news, at least for fans of Keanu Reeves’ 2005 comic book adaptation Constantine, it has been announced that Francis Galluppi, writer and director of the upcoming Evil Dead Wrath, has been tapped to pen a script adapting John Constantine, who is also known as Hellblazer.
Co-created by the Alan Moore, Constantine is a working-class occult detective from Liverpool, England, known for his chain-smoking and particular brand of cynicism, though he has a good heart beneath the gruff exterior.
The 2005 adaptation was rather controversial upon release, as Reeves not only lacks Hellblazer’s trademark blonde hair, but he is also depicted as American, which is probably for the best since Reeves cannot do an English accent to save his life (look no further than his performance in Bram Stoker’s Dracula from 1992). Regardless, Constantine has since gone on to draw a loyal cult following and favourable critical reassessment in the 21 years since its release.
The reason why this latest news about Gallupi hiring might spell trouble for Reeves is because it was first revealed last year that he has been working with writers to develop a script for a sequel to his rendition of the character. They even had the blessing of DC Studios, led (at the time) by Jame Gunn and Peter Safran, to develop said script after a meeting with the studio.
When I began writing this article on Sunday, I maintained that this in itself does not spell doom for Reeves’ sequel, as Gunn and Safran’s approach to the rebooted DC Universe has been uniquely dynamic, prioritizing strong scripts and ideas – evidenced by the recently released body horror Clayface – instead of the relatively rigid structuring embraced by the MCU.
For example, Gunn and Safran intend to create their own rendition of Batman in their DCU, but Matt Reeves’ The Batman already existed when they took over DC Studios. Instead of doing away with such an incredibly strong adaptation of the Caped Crusader, they decided to continue the saga, labelling such offshoots of their mainline DCU as “Elseworlds.”
However, with today’s stunning announcement of Gunn and Safran’s departure – which is very likely tied to the ongoing restructuring after Warner Bros.’ recent merger with Skydance – it is difficult to say where the Elseworlds concept stands with DC Studios, as new owners Larry and David Ellison may want a consolidation of the DCU over Gunn and Safran’s idiosyncratic, and, frankly, fresh approach. Considering that Jeremy Latchum, who is a Marvel alum and a protégé of Kevin Feige, will be taking over the studio, this could very well be the direction in which they want to go.
Nonetheless, it stands to reason that two film versions of John Constantine can certainly exist independent of each other in today’s DC, at least in theory. Yet, given the timing of the announcement of Gallupi’s involvement, in conjunction with Gunn and Safran stepping down as studio heads, not to mention the fact that there has not been any substantial update to Reeves’ sequel since early last year, there is an undeniable chance that his Constantine 2 is already dead in the water, we just don’t officially know it yet.