Keanu Reeves’s Best Horror Film Is Climbing Up The Streaming Charts
Keanu Reeves' Constantine is in the top ten on HBO Max.
This article is more than 2 years old
For many fans of actor Keanu Reeves, The Matrix and Speed tend to be listed as his greatest achievements in film, right next to the John Wick series of movies that have spawned several sequels and recently announced spin-offs. But Reeves has taken his talents to many different genres of films, including playing opposite Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson in the 2003 romantic comedy, Something’s Gotta Give. His adventures in horror cinema resulted in Constantine, a different kind of movie for the actor, but it’s slowly becoming more relevant these days as the project has been climbing the streaming charts, specifically on HBO Max.
According to a report by FlixPatrol, a website dedicated to monitoring how certain content is doing on streaming platforms, Constantine has hit within the Top 10 of those titles viewers are watching most on HBO Max. The 2005 film stars Keanu Reeves in the directorial debut of Francis Lawrence, who would go on to direct Jennifer Lawrence in most of the Hunger Games films. Prior to Constantine, Francis Lawrence was mostly known in the entertainment industry as a commercial and music video director, but quickly established himself with Constantine in the thriller genre of movies.
Constantine stars Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, an exorcist and demonologist who has supernatural abilities to communicate with half-angels and half-demons, as he is also able to travel between Hell and Earth. He meets a Los Angeles detective named Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz) and proceeds on a mission to help her prove that her twin sister’s death was not a suicide. Rounding out the cast of Constantine is Academy Award-winning actor Tilda Swinton, Shia LaBeouf, Guardians of the Galaxy actor Djimon Hounsou, and British rocker Gavin Rossdale.
The movie is loosely based on the DC Comics horror comic book Hellblazer and featured the main character played by Keanu Reeves chain smoking in almost every scene, as John Constantine was traditionally portrayed doing. Movies have come a long way since then, as many actors don’t tend to show smoking in a scene unless it is absolutely vital to that character. While the comic book is set in England, the film version of Constantine changed locations to Los Angeles and Reeves kept his American accent for the movie.
When it debuted in theaters in February 2005, Constantine became a bonafide hit for Keanu Reeves and director Francis Lawrence. The movie went on to gross over $230 million at the box office against a budget of nearly $100 million, which made it easy for many studio executives to consider producing a sequel to the film. Giant Freakin Robot recently reported that Constantine 2 is now in the works, with Keanu Reeves reprising the lead role of John Constantine again, megawatt producer J.J. Abrams coming aboard, and Francis Lawrence returning as director of the sequel.
The news of Constantine 2 being in development is surely welcomed by Keanu Reeves and the rest of the original cast, but the initial film was not met with applause from critics and audiences alike. Rotten Tomatoes currently ranks Constantine with 46% on its Tomatometer based on 228 critics’ reviews, however, the Audience Score is slightly better at 72% based on over 250,000 ratings from users to the site. Another critical aggregator, Metacritic, reflects similar results as the movie is ranked with a Metascore of 50 from 41 critics’ reviews and a User Score of 8.4, which typically denotes the fact that critics and audiences may still be split on how they view the film more than 15 years later.
Between 2005 when Constantine premiered and 2022 when Constantine 2 is currently being developed, Keanu Reeves has seen his role as an action hero in movies skyrocket. John Wick has become one of the actor’s most famous roles, as the revenge-driven assassin has led several sequels, including an upcoming fourth installment that will debut next year entitled John Wick: Chapter 4, costarring Bill Skarsgård and fellow Matrix actor, Laurence Fishburne. A new miniseries is also in development and will be shown on the streaming platform Peacock as part of the John Wick franchise, aptly named The Continental, which will star Mel Gibson in detailing the origins of some of the John Wick side characters.
