‘Constantine’ critics are faking James Gunn tweets to try and settle a long-running debate

One of the most welcome surprises to emerge in the aftermath of the DCU’s Chapter 1 – Gods & Monsters announcement was the news that Keanu Reeves’ Constantine sequel remains in active development.

It’s been 18 years since the iconic action hero first played the role, and given that James Gunn and Peter Safran are planning to take the franchise in a “younger and fresher” direction, there were concerns that Reeves would become the latest of the elder statesmen to be unceremoniously shown the door.

J.J. Abrams’ episodic reboot was canned a long time ago, but one of the longest-running debates over the occult detective is also one of the most simple. How do you pronounce his name? Reeves’ revised iteration, Matt Ryan’s Arrowverse regular, and Netflix series The Sandman all had different ideas, but Redditors are now locked in heated discussion after a doctored tweet that wasn’t posted by Gunn acted as the fulcrum for a renewed investigation.

The Guardians of the Galaxy director didn’t make that statement yesterday, and it’s unreasonable to expect that he would given that Reeves’ sequel is still on the cards. Of course, it’d be stating the obvious to say the John Wick ass-kicker is not a blonde-haired British dude, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula proved over 30 years ago why he shouldn’t even attempt the accent.

Seeing as almost 500 comments have been racked up already, it’s clear that faking the word of the co-CEO hasn’t done a thing to dampen the pronunciation conundrum, which has already been bubbling away for decades.