NBC Nails It With Their Small-Screen Constantine

If nothing else, NBC’s John Constantine will look just like John Constantine.

Truth be told, I completely forgot NBC was making a pilot for Constantine, adapting the long-running DC/ Vertigo hero for the small screen.  But they are, and they have revealed the first image of our hard-drinking hero, as played by Matt Ryan.

He looks great!  Not that Constantine is particularly tough to translate visually– he’s a disheveled and unkempt gumshoe with a British accent– but the Constantine movie somehow managed to cock even that up.  For it’s (admittedly fun) benefits, nothing about that movie reads as “Constantine,” especially Keanu Reeves’ surfer dude accent and black hair.  Ryan is Welsh, so his accent should be at least close enough, so that’s another win for this show!

To be honest, if this were a few years ago, I’d be very nervous about a Constantine series on network television.  If I’m gonna commit to the Hellblazer each week, I don’t want him toned down from his fairly extreme and bizarre comic book roots.  But since we’re seeing shows like Hannibal now, so deft and skilled at being gruesome and strange and creepy yet still compliant to network standards… I have confidence Constantine could be exactly the kind of show it should be.

Fingers crossed this one goes past pilot… it may have potential.