The Point Radio: Why You Should Be Watching CONSTANTINE

There is no shortage of comic properties on network TV this year, but one that may have escaped your attention is NBC’s CONSTANTINE. Executive Producers David S. Goyer and Daniel Cerrone talk about their plans for the future, where it all fits into DC’s New 52 Continuity and how they want to continue to make it the truest comic adaptation ever to hit the small screen.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub. Of all the comic book shows that have made it to TV this year, there probably is one or two that have escaped your notice. And it might even be Constantine on NBC.

Executive Producers David Goyer and Daniel Serona are willing to talk about just why this may be the most true comic book adaptation ever to make it to television. And why you need to be watching. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point.

The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Of all the TV shows based on comics this year, there's one that may have escaped your attention and that is Constantine on NBC. I talked to David Goyer, Executive Producer, who told me how he got involved with the show.

The genesis of the project is that I had a meeting with Warner Brothers and the Politician. And this was sort of right after Man of Steel had come out. And they asked me if I would be interested in doing a television show based on DC property. And so we just started having a general conversation about which one made the most sense. And the first character I asked about was John Constantine.

I've always been a huge fan. I was reading Swamp Thing when he was introduced. In fact, I had a letter printed in one of the early issues that he was introduced as a fan, I think, when I was in high school or something like that. And there were some sort of legal things to sort out initially.

And then we started talking about other characters. But Man of Steel Constantine became pre and I was really excited. And the reason for why he's the right time, I'd done, obviously, in The Dark Knight films from Superman, sort of kind of these seminal costume heroes. But one of the reasons why I always liked John Constantine is he didn't have super powers.

He didn't have a costume. And he always used to kind of thud in his nose at those characters. So it was refreshing for me to tell a story about an anti-hero as opposed to a hero. And he's someone who was really damaged. And I just feel like he's one of the great characters of sort of modern literature.

And I don't know, it was a different change of pace. Co-EP and showrunner Daniel Cerrone assured me there's no doubt they're staying very close to the comic material here. We have this incredible source material. And we want to honor it and dig as deeply into it as we possibly can.

And at the same time, look, we're a weekly network show and we have weekly stories. And we're trying to present the best of both worlds in terms of ongoing mythology within the hub laser and DC world, but wrapped around weekly stories that viewers can hook into. One of the reasons that all works, as Daniel points out, is the love they have for the

character. He fell in love with all the things about John Constantine that the fans did. And or at least based on what I've read of the fans. But look, we needed that smart ass, wise cracking, gallows humor, scruffy blonde haired trenchcoat wearing cigarette smoking Brit with a fatalistic attitude and this deeply humanist point of

view for reasons that he doesn't even understand. We like that character. That was someone that just appealed to us. So we were going to be true to that no matter what. And then when you start and we wanted to stay true to the world and the characters and then

you take that foundation and you have to figure out, OK, how can we pour that into a show that can last and sustain itself on a weekly basis? And NBC has certain desires for the show. They wanted stories that were told every week. So as David mentioned before, this is a bit of a hybrid.

I mean, for us, it was OK. How do we figure out how to both, you know, as fans tell the story we want to tell about the evolution of this character and his relationships, you know, as well as, you know, some closed in stories to broaden out the fan base. So so, yes, I mean, we came out we came out of the fans.

I asked David how difficult it is to make a show both for television and one that serves the fan base as well. I've adapted quite a few comic book properties now and it's a it's it's tricky because I think you have to be really attentive to the fan base. What we talk about is but at the same time, I mean, I'm paraphrasing Steve Jobs.

You can't give the market what they say they want. You want to give them something that they haven't even thought of. You give them exactly what they want. They become disappointed by the same token. The way that we've always tried to measure it is that, you know, we try to dip in with

the fans and be aware of what are the issues that are most important to them, what are the core concepts of the most important with characters that are most important. But we also cognizant of the fact that if the show is going to flourish and broaden its audience, we need to be able to respond to an audience that's greater than just the core comic book fans.

And so it needs to work for both audiences. There's no doubt DC has a bunch of characters on TV this year. But David's quite to point out to me the differences between, well, say a flash and a constant I mean, there are heroes and there are anti heroes and they're both a lot of fun to write. But but but in some ways, writing anti heroes, anti heroes are more fun to write for because

they're not bound by the same world code that the heroes are. And in some ways, anti heroes are more human because most of us have foibles. Most of us are imperfect. And and, you know, he's he's doing what he's doing for fundamentally noble reasons. But he doesn't really have a code of conduct.

I do think that audiences also like the anti heroes. And if you look at House, if you look at Luther, if you look at Sherlock, I would categorize these characters as more properly anti heroes and heroes. It can be fun and and and different. And it's they they're not aspirational.

You don't know people want to be them and people want to be Superman. I don't think people want to be constantly because it's kind of a miserable thought. But but it's also fun. And it's fun to you know, and it's irreverent. And it's just a different way to go.

Despite what you may think, Daniel assured me the network has not tried to tone the show down. They they they have pushed us to go bigger. They pushed us to go darker. They pushed us to go scarier. Their notes constantly.

If I had to boil their note down to one, it would be just make this as big and scary as possible. Like like that's what they want to see. So it's been really freeing for us. I mean, look, we have to do what we do with them. But that's charity limitations and and capabilities.

But but no, they have not. There have been some bumps in the road, including a character in the pilot played by actress Lucy Griffiths, who didn't make it to the regular series. And David explains why. You know, honestly, it it it really wasn't that difficult.

I mean, it became apparent to us. And look, we're glad you like her. I think she did a fantastic job. But I think that the the character wasn't which was flawed in its conception. And obviously we're playing for that.

She was the only major character in the pilot that wasn't from the comic books. And sometimes you make these concessions when you're trying to get a show off and running. And and, you know, one of the benefits of doing a pilot is you've got this initial downtime after the pilot before you're filming again, in which you can think about retooling some aspects.

And once we saw the character in action and we started breaking episodes two, three, four, five and six, we felt like we were just running into a lot of dead ends. And and that's when we decided to go back to the source material and started talking about character of Zed. And and I will say, I feel like that the vast majority of the audience seems to have

felt that the Zed character was a better match for John and it seems to have supported our decision. So in terms of what's taken place in the comics over the years and where the show fits in, both David and Daniel are quick to weigh in on that. I would say it's sort of the resident comic book nerd.

I would say that the show is almost exclusively influenced by the 352, you know, the health laser comics, you know, if for no other reason than how it plays Iran for 300 issues in the new Constantine is less than 20. I'm not quite sure where they're at now. 1516.

They're just it's just not the body of work that exists in terms of what we're influenced by. So without question, and I know this is really inside baseball, but the show is primarily influenced by and inspired by the the prefix to comment. Yeah, if I can jump in on that part,

David is completely right. I don't think we've other than, you know, we do look over. I mean, look, we have the whole sort of Constantine canon at our disposal in terms of storytelling. We do look to the newer issues, you know, to see if there's interesting story ideas

for us or stories that we can use or adapt. But look, the way I've described what we're doing on the show is, you know, Constantine is just amazing mythology. And there's this amazing character. And, you know, it's just like this fantastic car that we've been given the keys to to

take it for a spin. And we're doing that on network television. And, you know, the writers of sort of the new 52 Constantine, they're doing the same things we we are. They're basically rebooting the franchise.

We're rebooting it for television. They're doing it for sort of a new generation of, you know, of comic book readers. So we're kind of charged with the same task, you know, in terms of taking what was there, the foundation of what was there, and, you know, just trying to honor it and do the best that we can with it for our medium.

So, so, yeah, it's all old school. I mean, you know, one of the most fascinating things about Constantine to me is that it was the longest running comic book series, according to my understanding of any imprint of any comic book publisher that was never in its 30 year run, it was never rebooted. It was never renumbered.

It was never reissued. You know, it just stayed in continuous publication as a guy who aged on the page, you know, in real time. And I just think that makes him such a unique character. And what we're doing in our shows, we're going back to the beginning, we're basically meeting

him at roughly the same time that you met him in Hellblazer in the very first issue. So our timeline, you know, when people are like, wow, is he, you know, in terms of the cancer story and all the great arcs that he has, you know, we just hope and pray that this show has legs because we'll get to them. Like we love those arcs, Dangerous Habits and all the arcs that everybody else is excited

about. We're excited about. And what's great is that we're choosing an entry point where the character is young and all those adventures are ahead of him and we hope to dramatize as many of them as we possibly can.

New episodes of Constantine every Friday on NBC. See past episodes at NBC.com or on Hulu Plus. So here's how the weekend went down in pop culture that DreamWorks Hasbro merger we told you about. It's not going to happen.

It all came down to the dollars with DreamWorks asking Hasbro for $30 a share in the acquisition, even though they're only selling their shares right now at about $22 each. In the meantime, it looks like DreamWorks may be selling part of their YouTube channel to Hearst that may take place sometime over the next few days. It's Netflix to the rescue again, this time saving another show from cancellation.

Longmire the A&E Western that had a pretty decent third season may be ending up as a regular Netflix series for season number four. Longmire racked up a little over 5 million viewers over its last run on A&E. Get ready for Sony's new cloud-based TV service which has a soft launch at some point this month.

It'll be called PlayStation View. It'll offer live TV and on-demand content from 75 networks including Viacom, CBS, Fox and NBC Universal. Among the offerings will be live and local feeds from CBS and NBC affiliates, plus prime time television from those networks as well as BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Spike,

VH1 and so much more as well. The nice twist is that users can save your favorite show to the cloud without restrictions or scheduling conflicts and have access to episodes of that show for 28 days to watch when you'd like to. You'll need a PS3 or a PS4 console of course.

No word yet on what the pricing for the service will be. Here's another one of those lists where DC has to play second to Marvel this time in licensing. According to numbers from the licensing letter which covers 2013, the big winner is Spider-Man for Marvel which brings in $1.3 billion in global sales every year.

The Avengers bring in about $325 million or did in 2013. For DC the top-burner is Batman which brings in about $494 million. Superman comes in with $277 million in sales as well. The Crown is a new series being ordered by Netflix. The 10 episode run will tell the story of Queen Elizabeth II and her reign.

It's based on a play called The Audience which actually starred Helen Mirren on Broadway. It will hit the streaming service with all episodes debuting at once of course in 2016. It's not over yet for the Duck Dynasty franchise. Right now there's a musical being planned based on the reality show. In the New York Times the Duck Commander Family Musical will have actors playing members

of the Robertson clan that have been featured on the A&E reality show which has had its ups and downs over the past year. Being produced by the guy who did the Jersey Boys, Broadway producer Michael David. It looks like TNT is bringing the series perception to a close after three seasons. Now there's been no official word so far from the network but series star Eric McCormick

did tweet the news a few days ago. That's it for the podcast but you know how to find us anytime you need us on websites like ComicMix.com, michaeldavisworld.com, getthepointradio.com and of course in the iTunes podcast directory. On social media keep up with us under the point radio on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

See you right back here in just a couple of days.