CONSTANTINE News Round-Up: New Female Lead, Easter Eggs, The Spectre And More

Constantine was present at this week’s Summer TCA, and its panel revealed new details for the DC Comics series. It was previously reported that Lucy Griffiths has left the show, and her character from the pilot, Liv, will be replaced by comic book favorite Zed. And now, we know who’s playing her. Latina actress Angelica Celaya is set to play Zed, who will serve as the new female lead on Constantine. The show’s official Twitter account (via CBM) has shared plenty of new details for the anticipated NBC series, and you can check out a rundown below.

-Expect lots of DC Comics easter eggs in the pilot.
-David Goyer stated that don’t expect friends of Constantine to stay safe. [Guess he’s referring to Liv.]
-The show deals with Constantine doing good for a reward and doing good for the sake of good. As comic book readers will know, John Constantine soul belongs to Hell and thus he’s trying to do enough good deeds during his time on Earth to make sure he doesn’t spend his afterlife as demon fodder.
-The first season is about rising darkness.
-Harold Perrineau says his character, Manny , is an angel of questionable intent.
-Constantine is a smoker, but we just won’t actually see him smoke.
-One scene from the pilot is being reshot to make Liv less of a heroic figure and more of a damsel in distress. It’s in order to facilitate her exit from the show and set the stage for Zed.

Additionally, executive producer David S. Goyer has reaffirmed plans to introduce other supernatural DC characters on Constantine, taking a page from Arrow‘s book. “The intention is that we have DC’s occult universe open to us and the fact that we had Doctor Fate’s helmet in the pilot is an indication that we’re going to be doing that. We’re introducing another character from the DC universe within the first eight or nine episodes as well.” It was then suggested that a spin-off series will launch for a character following an appearance on Constantine.

Writer Daniel Cerone then tells IGN that they’re hoping to introduce none other than Jim Corrigan, aka the Spectre. “Look, I’m just bringing you in on the early creative discussions,” he said. “It might happen, it might not. It’s just the point you’re catching us at. Right now, episode five is off on outline. Within the context of episode five, we had a need for a police officer who sees that supernatural evils exist. Right there, okay, that’s an opportunity to introduce a DC character. So we talked to our DC representatives and we’re like what if we make this character Jim Corrigan, who goes on the become The Spectre. For those who don’t know, Jim Corrigan is a police officer who kind of takes the law into his own hands… he ends up dying and is reincarnated as The Spectre. So it’s a perfect opportunity for us, because we can name this character Jim Corrigan and within our story, for the general viewer, that works, because now Constantine has a friend on the force. For the comic book fan, ‘My god, that’s Jim Corrigan!’ And we can get back to that character and can slowly develop that character and who knows, maybe there’s an opportunity in the future to even see the origin story unfold within the framework of our TV series. It creates opportunities and creatively you just have to go in and lay that groundwork in and try and let it unfold naturally. So we’re in the midst of approvals on that, but that’s one idea we’re exploring right now.” Could The Spectre then headline his own series? That’s obviously not definite right now, but Goyer then states that he hopes Constantine will be successful enough to receive a second season, so other DC characters can be explored. Which characters would you like to see introduced on the series?

Finally, Goyer weighs in on the possibility of DC characters being featured in future films following appearances on Constantine. “There’s been a decision that it’s okay to cross-promote these characters and that the audience can take it.” When asked for his thoughts on seeing the same actor play a role on both film and television, he adds, “I think that’s a headache, but…” Guillermo del Toro, who is developing a Justice League Dark movie, previously expressed interest in connecting his big screen adaptation to NBC’s Constantine. Whether either will be linked to the DC Cinematic Universe has yet to be confirmed. Constantine premieres on NBC October 24th.