JJ Abrams working on 'Justice League Dark' HBO Max series, will it feature Matt Ryan's Constantine?
Warnermedia and HBO Max have announced that 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker' director JJ Abrams will develop three new series for the HBO Max streaming service and one of them is a yet-to-be-titled show described as "a major series based on DC characters in the Justice League Dark Universe, details to be revealed soon."
For those who don't know, Justice League Dark is a team of heroes from the paranormal side of DC. The lineup has changed a few times, but John Constantine, Zatanna and Swamp-Thing are mainstays of the team. That begs the question whether Matt Ryan's Constantine will show up on the show? The actor currently plays the character in the hit The CW show 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' and previously played him in the not-too-successful NBC series 'Constantine'.
Matt Ryan is probably the actor most strongly associated with the character, and that's saying something because Keanu Reeves played Constantine in the 2005 movie. Considering how popular his take on the character has become in recent years it would make sense to include him on the show, though it remains to be seen whether that would be contractually possible.
The other shows under development for HBO Max from Abrams and his production company Bad Robot include a spinoff of 'The Shining' called 'Overlook' and an original series titled 'Duster', the story of a gutsy getaway driver for a growing crime syndicate in the 1970's Southwest, co-written by JJ Abrams and LaToya Morgan.
"What an amazing start to our association with the wildly imaginative Bad Robot team under JJ and Katie," Kevin Reilly, chief content officer at HBO Max, said in a statement, according to Comic Book. "What could be better than an original JJ idea and then Warner Bros. letting them loose on iconic IP from Stephen King and the DC Universe and to provide more must-have programming on HBO Max."
It was previously announced that HBO Max would feature two other DC properties, a 'Green Lantern' series and a horror anthology, titled 'Strange Adventures'. Those two shows are being developed by Greg Berlanti, one of the minds that helped create The CW's Arrowverse.
Release dates for the HBO Max shows haven't been announced yet, but the streaming service is currently scheduled to launch in May 2020.