I have some interesting television news for you this morning involving a British comic book character and a British actor. Deadline is reporting that NBC has landed Constantine, a drama that will be based on John Constantine and the characters that appear in the comics. Constantine will be written and produced by David S. Goyer and Daniel Cerone, executive producer for The Mentalist.
For those of you unfamiliar with the comics or the 2005 film starring Keanu Reeves (although there were many changes made for the movie), John Constantine is a cynical British occult detective who defends the world from dark forces, including influences on humanity from Heaven and Hell. There's a chance we'll be seeing two versions of the character in the near future since Guillermo Del Toro is also working on the film DARK UNIVERSE that will feature John Constantine, as well as other DC characters like Swamp Thing and The Spectre.
Meanwhile, Variety has learned Martin Freeman has joined FX's Fargo, a 10-episode series inspired by the movie. He'll be playing a small-town insurance salesman whose life is forever changed due to the arrival of Lorne Malvo, a manipulative character who will be played by Billy Bob Thornton. Joel and Ethan Coen are executive producing the limited mini-series.
Both projects have the potential to be great, but I'm not going be sold on either series until I see something from them. I'm a fan of the Hellblazer/Constantine comics and I love FARGO, so I really hope NBC and FX doesn't end up airing pale imitations of the source material.
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