NBC’s adaptation of DC comic book series, ‘Hellblazer’, is officially cancelled. Daniel Cerone (@DanielVCerone), the showrunner of the ill-fated drama, confirmed on Sunday that efforts to shop the series to other networks had failed.
Cerone (Dexter, The Mentalist) shared the news on twitter, stating “I promised I’d share news when I had it — sadly, that news is not good. The cast and writers of Constantine are being released from their contracts. The studio tried to find a new home for the show, for which we’re forever grateful, but those efforts didn’t pan out. I’m sorry; I wasn’t provided any information on the attempts to sell the show elsewhere. All I can report is that the show is over.”
Constantine premiered in the fall of 2014, and never really pulled in the numbers to guarantee renewal for a second season. For those unfamiliar with the ‘Hellblazer’ comic book series, John Constantine is a demon hunter and master of the occult. The first season of the short-lived NBC show, centered on Matt Ryan (The Tudors, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag) as John Constantine, battling to protect the innocent from different supernatural threats.
Rumors were abound in early 2015, that while NBC had declined to renew the show for a second season, they were trying to find a new home for it on other NBC Universal owned networks. Syfy was mentioned as a possible landing place. Alas, it wasn’t to be and the above mentioned snippet from Cerone’s tweet confirmed the news.
It’s a show I am sad to see go. While the first season wasn’t spectacular, it was decent, had potential and despite not hitting lofty heights, made for decent viewing. A shift to Syfy would have been better for the show.
The first and sadly only season of Constantine is available on various streaming outlets, including Xbox Video.
