constantineToday NBC released its first trailer for their new DC/Vertigo based TV series, Constantine. Based off of John Constantine’s main on-going comic series, Hellblazer, it does look like Constantine, he does have an accent, he is fighting the paranormal, and he even said a proper naughty word in the way of bollocks (which admittedly, is not that hard). So far that makes the series a significant step up from Warner Bros. attempt 9 years ago with Keanu Reeves (not that it was an entirely bad film, but even loosely following Deadly Habits, that just was not a film about John Constantine). constantine 2Yet still the trailer seems almost like a mix of the Hellblazer comics and the 2005 Constantine film. Furthermore, while I’m not going to knock Matt Ryan’s accent (though it still just sounds as Captain Edward Kenway to me) and most Americans could never even see a difference in a Welshman playing a man from Liverpool (nor could most Englishman, because lets face it when we say spitting distance is spitting distance whether you’re talking miles or kilometers), it just doesn’t sound like the John Constantine I at least heard in my head. I was hoping for something a bit more…deep and destroyed from years of smoking. I was also hoping Matt Ryan could look a bit darker, dishelved, and generally less goofy. Yet no matter how much I nitpick it, I’m somewhat excited to see this new comic adaptation brought to television. Hellblazer was always a dark and witty comic that seemed like a post-punk horror drug trip, and I never thought or expected it to truly translate to film of any kind. But maybe this TV series is as close as we’ll get and give Constantine fans an enjoyable hour every Friday when it starts up this Fall on NBC. Take a look at the trailer below and tell us what you think.