Matt Ryan’s Constantine To Appear In New Animated Series

By Steve Lam | Jan 9, 2017

A new Constantine animated television series will appear on CW Seed.

Gift giving doesn’t have to end with the holidays because Hellblazer fans get nice post-Christmas present. Today, during the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, CW Seed announced that John Constantine will be appearing in animated form. The character will be voiced by Matt Ryan—who played the live-action incarnation of the con-man mage.

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In 2014–2015, Matt Ryan starred as John Constantine on the NBC series Constantine. Sadly, the show only lasted for a short 13-episode run. Though it garnered some positive reviews, the production costs were too high to justify the lack of viewers.

The show didn’t go down without a fight though. Producer Daniel Cerone shopped for a new home and also pitched a second season which would entail some significant production savings. In the end, NBC opted not to renew the series.

In August 2015, fans rejoiced when The CW confirmed that Matt Ryan would be appearing as John Constnatine on the hit series Arrow—linking the NBC incarnation of the character to the Arrow-verse.

Constantine would appear on Season 4, Episode 5 of Arrow, titled “Haunted.” The episode gave a backstory of Oliver having met John on Lian Yu during his five-year absence. In the present—due to John’s expertise in the supernatural—Oliver requests John’s help with the then newly resurrected Sara Lance.

The episode was met with positive reviews with the overall consensus being that there wasn’t enough Constantine. Though fans petitioned for the series to be picked up by The CW, it never happened. Viewers were left with only the hope of “maybe it’ll happen in the future.”

It seems that with today’s announcement, the likelihood of the character having another live-action appearance on the The CW will be within the realm of possibility, and maybe even his own live-action series. Why? Vixen also started out as an Arrow-verse animated series on CW Seed, but soon graduated to making a live-action appearance on Arrow.

Next: A recap of Constantine's finale

CW Seed’s Constantine will be premiering in 2018—which is still a ways off. For those who can’t wait that long, Matt Ryan will be lending his voice as John Constantine in the upcoming Justice League Dark. Though it’s still Constantine, this animated film is outside of the Arrow-verse, which means it’s not the incarnation of the character from the NBC series.