Fans were relieved that Welsh actor Matt Ryan, who sports blond hair was cast as the lead in NBC’s new show ‘Constantine’ based on the character John Constantine from the comic series ‘Hellblazer’, ‘Swamp Thing’ and currently ‘Constantine’ and ‘Justice League Dark’. Though the 2005 movie wasn’t awful, dark haired American Keanu Reeves was not really the perfect choice to play this character. So all is well and good, right?
Well…
The show is being forced to change one thing– John Constantine can’t smoke. Go ahead, freak out. Don’t blame you.
Actually, the producers wanted him to smoke, but NBC put the kibosh on that particular trait. Neil Marshall, who directed the pilot confessed:
“No we’re not [allowed top show him smoking]. It’s the one thing, a compromise I guess. On network it’s the one thing you can’t smoke on network. That’s one of his character traits. We’re working around that. We’re trying to get aspects of it in there as much as possible. We’ll see.”
Marshall stated that in the pilot, there is no mention of Constantine having cancer, so that’s another idea that may be dropped or reworked further down the line.
Ironically, in the 2005 film, the creators dismissed a lot of facets of the character, but did keep the smoking habit.
NBC has seemingly been actively attempting to woo ‘Hellblazer’ fans who were disappointed by Frances Lawrence’s movie, by casting appropriate actors for not only the John Constantine role, but his cab driving buddy Chas, played by an adult with a quirky look (Charles Halford), versus the teenage character Shia LeBeouf played in the movie. But I guess rules are rules and the network made the conscious decision to not depict smoking, so as not to encourage viewers to partake.
What do you think? Is this a deal-breaker for you?
Source: Screen Rant
