'Constantine' is coming back to TV as an animated CW show
Constantine lives! The DC Comics hero is being resurrected by The CW for a new digital animated series that will debut on CW Seed during the 2017-2018 season, the network announced Sunday at its Television Critics Association press day.
The hero has walked a tumultuous path on the small screen -- NBC premiered a short-lived live action series in 2014 which lasted only 13 episodes before being cancelled.
A spirited fan campaign then ensued to try and encourage another network to revive the show, with Warner Bros. TV attempting to shop the series elsewhere. Two years later, that fervor appears to have paid off, albeit in a slightly different form.
The hero was also the subject of an eponymous 2005 feature film which starred Keanu Reeves as John Constantine.
Matt Ryan played the hero in NBC's series, and reprised his role for a guest spot on The CW's Arrow in Season 4 -- he'll take on the role once again in CW Seed's animated series, which will be comprised of five or six episodes, each around 10 minutes in length, according to CW president Mark Pedowitz.
Constantine joins two other animated shows set in the shared DC TV universe of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow, all of which are produced by Greg Berlanti: Vixen, a character who also made a live-action cameo on Arrow, and the upcoming Freedom Fighters: The Ray, which will feature the first openly gay hero to headline a superhero series.
