John Constantine was first introduced in the comic series Swamp Thing, as a reluctant quasi con-man turned supernatural detective. The character became the lead in the series Hellblazer which ran for 300 issues before being integrated back into the main stream DC-Universe as part of the new 52 reboot in a new series titled Constantine.
The only live action appearance of the character to date is in the 2005 horror/fantasy film starring Keanue Reeves. The film was directed by Francis Lawrence and was a moderate success generating approximately $230 million at the worldwide box office. The film series however was left as a standalone with no sequel being developed.
Cut to eight years later and it appears that Warner Bros. and DC Comics have taken a new project to NBC, being a Constantine centric TV-series with writing/producing by Daniel Cerone and David S. Goyer.
Goyer of course has been heavily involved in DC based projects for several years now, his works have included both the Dark Knight trilogy, as well as Man of Steel. Daniel Cerone has worked on The Mentalist, Motive, and the recently wrapped TV series Dexter.
With the success of urban fantasy shows such as Supernatural, it’s easy to see why there’s an interest in developing Hellblazer/Constantine further, but what about on the big screen? Over the last year there has been some discussion from Guillermo Del Toro’s camp that he’s interested in a Justice League Dark film, which would likely include John Constantine with other characters such as Zatanna, Deadman etc. There’s been little concrete news about this project however so for now just file it under wait and see. In he meantime, stay tuned for more news on how development of the TV series progresses.
