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Alan Moore's Celluloid Nightmares
by Brian Tallerico
BOOK: Hellblazer (1988)
 PLOT: Alan Moore may only loosely be related to the movie Constantine, but the film was still a disaster and one that Moore has mentioned publicly, so we'll include it. Maybe it wasn't the full-blown nightmare like a few of the others on this list, but it was definitely a bad daydream. Moore introduced the character of John Constantine in the DC comic book series Swamp Thing and found enough positive response to spin the guy off into his own series in 1988 called Hellblazer (It actually would have been called "Hellraiser" if a little guy with pins in his head hadn't claimed the title). Jamie Delano and artist John Ridgway headed up the initial team and created the world where Constantine, a blond English anti-hero who's physical appearance was based on Sting, helps guard the rift between the supernatural and the world we know. Moore has little to do with the still-running Hellblazer - aside from creating the character - but the movie world still came knocking at Moore's door when it was time for Keanu Reeves to make another movie.
SCREENPLAY: The script by Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello focused on Hellblazer issues #41-46, a story-arc called "Dangerous Habits" written by Preacher scribe Garth Ennis. Brodbin and Cappello's screenplay tells the tale of Detective Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz) and her involvement with John Constantine, half-exorcist, half-scam artist, who has the ability to see the supernatural. Due to a suicide attempt in his youth, Constantine is doomed to Hell, so he uses his skill for banishing demons to try and win a place for himself in Heaven. However, his self-centered attacks on the forces of darkness have won him no friends on the demonic side, attracting the unwanted attention of Satan himself.
Several details from the Hellblazer series were changed, including Constantine's look and nationality (his Cockney English manner and khaki trenchcoat have long been held as his defining characteristics), the reason for his damnation, his willingness to fight, and even the motives of a major character (Gabriel). The film fell somewhere between hit and failure, making an impressive worldwide box office haul ($229 million) despite a fairly strong critical drubbing. Rumors of a sequel still persist with producer Lauren Shuler Donner claiming that a script is in development.
NIGHTMARE: Moore had been burned so badly by LXG and From Hell that it must have been nice to easily separate himself from the world of Hellblazer. He told Comic Book Resources, "When Karen Berger rang me up to give me money for the Constantine movie, I asked her to take my name off the film and split the money with the artists. Most of it went to Rick Veitch, who although was the first to draw John Constantine yet wasn't receiving anything from the film.... The rest was split between John Totleben, Steve Bissette, Jamie Delano and John Ridgeway, divided so everyone ended up with the same amount in total." Constantine mostly serves as another example of what goes wrong from page-to-screen for anybody, not just Alan Moore, but since he did create the character, a feature like this would be incomplete to ignore it. And it fits the pattern of Moore's brain-children becoming something completely different on the big screen. How exactly Hollywood decided to turn a fog-shrouded blonde, anti-social London sorcerer into Neo is far, far beyond our capacity for reasoned thought.
Alan Moore's Celluloid Nightmares Page 4
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