Keanu Comes To Town

By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 17, 2005 3:00PM

Chicagoist was sitting around with some of our comic-geek friends the other day and talking about the new Keanu Reeves movie Constantine that hits the big screen this weekend. We thought we’d share some of the comments overheard during that conversation from people looking forward to this film:

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Anyway, the filmmakers seem to have made every effort to replace all the interesting aspects of the Alan Moore-penned comic with the most common denominator. Sting-resembling antihero? See Keanu Run. Liverpudlian birthplace? Try California. Silk Cuts? Replaced with faux-brand Chang Jiangs. Bottle of booze? Glass of milk! (OK, we made that last one up).

By the way, if you’re wondering if former Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale retired to become a full-time househusband to Gwen Stefani, fear not! He shows up here as Balthazar though we’re sure that will disappoint those Bush fans hoping for a reunion—Chicagoist extends our condolences to both of you.

Starting next month, you’ll be seeing a lot more of Keanu as he and Sandra Bullock begin filming the soon-to-be-retitled romantic drama Il Mare—a remake of the Korean film Soware—here in the city. Reeves stars as an architect (seriously) who exchanges love letters with a doctor (Bullock) until he discovers they are separated in time by two years. Woah. Reeves's previous films here were Hardball and The Watcher (yeah, we sorta forgot about them too).

Also coming soon to Chicago are Will Farrell (woo!), Maggie Gyllenhaal, (swoon!) and Emma Thompson (er…yes, ma’am) to film the Marc Forster-directed comedy Stranger Than Fiction. Ferrell plays an IRS auditor who starts to hear the narration of his own story--a story that ends in his death. We’ve been looking forward to this movie since we saw an excerpt posted online though we’ve been unable to track it down since then. Filming begins here in April so get your cowbells ready.