As the devil himself knows, you just can’t keep John Constantine down.
Back in 2015, NBC announced that they weren’t going to renew Constantine for a second season. Fans were dismayed, immediately launching a campaign to save the show. Warner Bros seemed similarly eager to keep it going, attempting to get another network to pick it up. Both the fan and studio efforts failed, however, leading producer Daniel Cerone to comment:
“We’re leaving behind wild and passionate fans who believe in and were moved by what we tried to do. To leave such a significant, dedicated and active fan base on the table—that’s the real sadness. You all deserve many years of the series we set out to make, and we’re disappointed that we couldn’t deliver that to you.”
Then, in March 2018, the show got a (sort of) revival as an animated series on the CW Seed online streaming platform, with the episodes being compiled together into the feature-length film Constantine: City of Demons. That was well-received (as were Ryan’s appearances on Legends of Tomorrow), which might be why sources close to We Got This Covered say that there’s a full-blooded new Constantine show in development, and Warner Bros. want Matt Ryan back in the role.
With DC Universe having finally found its feet with the excellent Doom Patrol, and with Swamp Thing releasing this May, it seems to me that the streaming service would be the ideal home for the continuing adventures of John Constantine. After all, he made his comics debut in the pages of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, so it’d be a nice bit of symmetry if he was to pop up in a cameo appearance at some point in the first season.
But though that seems to make sense to us, it’s probably equally likely that the character will make a proper return to The CW as part of the Arrowverse. Either way, it’s looking like Constantine will be back in style fairly soon, and we can’t wait to see where he appears next.