Constantine has risen from the dead! Well, sorta, since Matt Ryan will reprise his role as the DC Comics necromancer in an episode of The CW's Arrow. The news was confirmed earlier today during TCA, as reported by our own Haleigh Foutch. It didn't take long for fans to voice their support across social media.

Ryan played the title character of NBC's Constantine for the 13 episodes of the show's first and only season and, despite the network's decision not to renew the show, stayed positive and encouraged the "Hellblazer" fandom to #SaveConstantine. While it may not have worked out quite the way they intended, it's pretty cool to hear that Constantine will conjure up at least one more performance.

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Image via The CW

Here's a brief answer from The CW President Mark Pedowitz explaining how Arrow is able to use NBC's Constantine on an upcoming episode:

How did you get permission to use the character of Constantine given that he was not on a CBS/CW network?

Pedowitz: The series is no longer on the air and luckily one of our parent companies, Warner Bros., was a production company on Constantine. We worked with them and it's a great one-shot episode.


It looks like Ryan will guest star on the fifth episode of season four of Arrow, titled "Haunted." The press release describes the episode, and Constantine's interaction with Oliver Queen, as such:

John Constantine is a weather worn exorcist and expert on the supernatural and the occult.  He is a detective, magician, and a hunter of demons, and will provide critical support to Oliver (Stephen Amell) when arrows aren't enough.

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Image via NBC

The episode title and the synopsis suggest something supernatural is at work here, especially considering the part about arrows not being enough, so I'm quite curious to see how the tone of this hour is handled. Look for it to air on Wednesday, November 4th, just after the Halloween holiday.

Here's what Arrow Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim had to say about Ryan's guest appearance:

"We are thrilled to have Matt Ryan reprise the role of John Constantine on an upcoming episode of Arrow. Matt is an incredibly talented actor and his portrayal of this beloved character was always something we admired. The introduction of magic and mysticism on the show this season has provided a truly organic opportunity for us to bring John Constantine to Arrow and the CW’s DC universe. It will be a well-deserved tip of the hat to all the Constantine fans who were so incredibly supportive of that series."


Crossovers episodes are nothing new, but they're normally on the same network and involve two shows that are currently airing. The modern television landscape being what it is, certain characters owned by, say, DC Comics can be spread out over at least three different networks with shows varying quite a bit in terms of tone. A Constantine crossover with Arrow makes way more sense than Gotham crossing over with ... well, anything.

The news spread quickly through the combined social networks of The CW's heroic shows and the fans of NBC's Constantine who had been waiting for word of a resurrection. Here's a warm welcome from Arrow's Stephen Amell to Ryan:

[EMBED_TWITTER]https://twitter.com/amellywood/status/631210584327892996[/EMBED_TWITTER]

 


And Ryan's most excellent response:

[EMBED_TWITTER]https://twitter.com/mattryanreal/status/631211617859059712[/EMBED_TWITTER]

Are you looking forward to the episode? Happy to have Constantine back even just for an hour? Be sure to let us know in the comments!

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Image via NBC