Justice-League-Dark-animated

‘Constantine’ bombed in its singular season on NBC, but fans won’t let it go.  Star Matt Ryan, who portrayed paranormal investigator John Constantine, returned in the role on ‘Arrow’ last season and he will return at least once more.  Or at least his voice will.  Ryan is voicing Constantine in the animated ‘Justice League Dark’ movie.

Constantine Matt Ryan thumbThis teaser offers a glimpse into the supernatural side of the DC Universe.  Batman (ugh) appears (a lot, apparently) as a bridge between the existing DC animated universe and this new facet.  Jason O’Mara returns as Batman, with Camilla Ludington as Zatanna, Nicholas Turturro as Deadman and Ray Chase as Jason Blood/Etrigan the Demon.  Swamp Thing and Black Orchid also star, but their voice actors are currently unknown.  The main villain appears to be Felix Faust.  Although as noted in the video, the Demons Three also pop up.

Jay Oliva, who has directed most of the recent DC animated movies, including ‘Justice League: War’, ‘Batman Vs. Robin’ and ‘Batman: Bad Blood’ among others, returns to helm this installment.

As noted in the video, this version of Black Orchid is all new and doesn’t resemble past comic book versions.  But it still looks like a lot of fun and after ‘Justice League Vs. Teen Titans’ expanded this animated universe a bit, this further pushes things closer in keeping with the comics.

Check out the video preview below:

‘Justice League Dark’ has been in development as a live action movie for years now, with Guillermo del Toro attached to directed, but he recently walked away from the project, although it appears Warner Brothers may pick up his scraps and make their own movie.  So in some way, this animated movie could be looked upon as a teaser of that.  (See: ‘Batman: Assault On Arkham’ which laid the groundwork for ‘Suicide Squad’.)

What do you think about seeing John Constantine, Swamp Thing and the rest in animated form?

This movie will be available in fall of this year, most likely on VOD first with the DVD/Blu-Ray versions coming two weeks to a month later.