Keanu Reeves to Return for a Constantine Sequel with Original Director Francis Lawrence

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Keanu Reeves is heading back into a fan favorite role.

PEOPLE can confirm that a sequel to the cult favorite 2005 film Constantine is in the works.

Fans will get to see Reeves, 58, reprise his role as exorcist/demonologist John Constantine after 17 years since the original first hit theaters. The supernatural thriller will re-team Reeves with original director Francis Lawrence.

The original film, which is based on DC's Hellblazer comics, follows Constantine through his cursed existence fighting evil demons. The movie grossed over $200 million worldwide upon its release.

Akiva Goldsman will write the screenplay and produce the project through his Weed Road Pictures, alongside Bad Robot's J.J. Abrams and Hannah Minghella, according to Deadline, who was first to report the news.

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Reeves has never shied away from how much he has hoped to one day step back into the role of the trenchcoat-wearing hero.

In a conversation with Stephen Colbert last year, he said Constantine was at the top of his list of characters he'd love to return to. "I would love to be John Constantine again," he said. "I've tried."

During a 15th-anniversary panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Goldsman said they had tried for years to make a Constantine sequel, but the studio said the box office earnings didn't warrant it.

"We wanted to make … a hard-R sequel," he said at the time. "I think we'd probably make it tomorrow. Yes, we tried a lot of different ways to find … it was always to the studios who made it, which were Village Roadshow and Warner Bros. It was always a little bit of a feathered fish."

Reeves, whose acting career has spanned four decades, has recently appeared in DC League of Super-Pets as the voice of Batman, The Matrix Resurrections as Neo and Bill & Ted Face the Music as Ted.

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Reeves is also currently executive producing John Wick: Chapter 4 — in which he also plays the lead role — and recently produced the movie Already Gone and the short film Salacia.

His next role, however, will be something new for the movie star — a lead role on TV.

Alongside Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, Reeves will executive produce the new Hulu series Devil in the White City, written by Castle Rock producer Sam Shaw and directed by Little Children helmer Todd Field.

Based on a bestselling book by the same name, written by Erik Larson, the new series tells the story of Dr. H. H. Holmes, the con artist and serial killer who created the dangerous "Murder Castle" in the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, as well as Daniel H. Burnham, the architect and urban planner who revolutionized the urban landscape and helped to develop early skyscrapers.

Reeves will portray the brilliant young Burnham.