You don’t know how many times I typed “Sting” as “String.”
So this kind of blew my mind: Sting to write introduction to John Constantine anniversary hardcover.
The surprising element is that Constantine’s creation in Swamp Thing was inspired by artists Steve Bissette and John Totleben’s desire to drawn a character based on Sting. Now, for whatever reason, based on nothing in particular, I’d always half-believed that DC downplayed that particular connection to avoid any…legal shenanigans, perhaps. I don’t know. That’s probably part of the reason why this came as such a surprise to me. (The other reason was thinking Sting’s response would be “They based a WHAT on me? They want me to do WHAT? Get outta here.”)
But nope, there it is, officially announced by DC Comics. And if you click on that first link, you’ll see an actual honest-to-goodness video of Mr. Sting speaking about the occasion, dressed like Constantine. I mean, if only that could have been our movie version of John, right?
Anyway, the most shocking element of said video is his pronunciation of “Constantine” — as the dreaded “Constan-TEEN.” You maybe remember my longstanding losing battle against this, starting way back when with this here Swamp Thing panel:
…but, man, that’s it. I admit defeat. If Sting says it that way, then, you know, that’s just how it’s going to be. MY WAR IS OVER.
Never give in! Never surrender!
I’m still not a hundred percent sure if this is Sting the singer or Sting the wrestler.
I look at Sting and I look at John Constantine, and the first thing I think is… Keanu Reeves
Whereas I think the surprising element is that the press release refers to me as “HELLBLAZER author Rich Handley” even though I’ve never written an issue of HELLBLAZER. :)
Myron M: it must be Sting the singer because in the eccentric heading of the article it describes him as a “Global rocker” a phrase never used by anyone in reference to Sting, or anyone else, ever.
String looks awesome as Constantinople!
Wasn’t it based on the sinister character Sting played in the 1982 film “Brimstone and Treacle”?
It’s Constantine through and through…
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083693/
Gotta know when to fold em I guess.
This probably never got enough circulation to become a proper urban legend, but once upon a time there was speculation that Keanu Reeves was cast in CONSTANTINE precisely to avoid legal action by Sting. The idea was that Mr. Sumner might not be aware that there was a comic book character based on him, or if he was he might not mind so long as it was something that sold only a few thousand copies to a bunch of freaks, but he would not overlook a multi-million dollar Hollywood movie. Therefore, so the reasoning went, the producers made a point of casting someone who looked and sounded nothing like Sting.
I pass this along though I find it unconvincing. It would have been an unnecessary move. Say that the role had gone to Jude Law or Ewan MacGregor (names that came up often when fans were dream-casting): you would have had a character who still suggested the comic book character, but who definitely looked like Jude Law or Ewan MacGregor, not Sting. No, I have to assume that Reeves was cast for the simple reason that he was the biggest star the producers could get.