There have been a fair amount of rumors flying around about NBC’s struggling supernatural series Constantine (and yes, I have been retweeting some of them, more on that below), but we don’t have official word on the show’s status just yet. Buzzfeed’s Kate Arthur first reported the cancellation and then SlashFilm.com ran with that on their site. They have since redacted the claim and Constantine‘s showrunner Daniel Cerone got involved and made the following comments to ComicBook.com:
I just received confirmation from the corporate offices at NBC. I was assured that Constantine has not been canceled and our pitch meeting to discuss a potential second season remains on the books. By the way, this is a pitch meeting involving the president of Warner Bros and and the entertainment heads of NBC. Nobody at this incredibly busy time of the development season has time to waste taking pointless meetings.
Now, is it fair to say that Constantine is a long shot? Sure, that’s fair to say. While we marginally improved a tough time slot for NBC, we’re a very expensive show to produce. A lot of NBC’s decision making will not doubt hinge on their new pilots and how they feel those new shows would fare as a companion piece to Grimm, versus a second season of Constantine.
Of course the fact is, just like Cerone said, Constantine‘s chances don’t look great at this point. It averaged just a 0.9 score in the 18-49 demographic based on the overnights which is lower than the 1.1 Dracula pulled on Fridays last year and that one was cancelled. Plus Dracula had international financing backing it and it was cheaper for NBC, whereas Constantine is a fairly expensive entry. There were reports that the show’s studio Warner Bros. was shopping it around and that Syfy was considered as a likely landing spot. Slashfilm.com claims they debunked that (take it for what it’s worth), though I never considered Syfy a likely savior for the show because of all the other development they currently have in the pipeline. It’s still not impossible that WB is looking to find a new home for the show–thus their participation in the pitch meeting that Cerone mentions–and it has received good marks from fans and critics alike, but it remains to be seen if anything will come from that.
I’ve said for a while that I believe Constantine has almost certainly aired its last episode on NBC, and it’s hard to gauge the likelihood of it jumping networks. We haven’t seen much of that lately and even the streaming services had not made much effort to come to the rescue of cancelled shows (especially the more expensive ones). It’s still a waiting game, though we could hear something as early as today or maybe not until NBC presents their schedule for next year to the advertisers on May 11th.
And a note about passing along rumors like this: the gossip-driven entertainment industry lives and dies by rumors, some pan out and some don’t. And if you are reporting on that industry, then passing along rumors is part of what you do. If I see claims about cancellations and/or renewals from somewhat credible sources, I will be passing them along. But I will note if there has been no official confirmation just like I did yesterday when I retweeted SlashFilm.com’s claim. We want information as fast as possible these days, and sometimes that leads to passing along misinformation. But I will promise to be as diligent as possible in checking the facts and will let you know if they are unverified and will keep watching for official word on the matter.
