Legends Of Tomorrow: Why Matt Ryan Is Playing A New Character In S7
John Constantine will leave Legends of Tomorrow after season 6, but popular actor Matt Ryan will return in a new role. Why isn’t he calling it quits?
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Arrowverse fans are wondering why Matt Ryan is hanging up his trenchcoat after seven years of playing warlock John Constantine, but returning in Legends of Tomorrow season 7 to play a new character. The reason for Ryan’s retirement as Constantine lies in the DCEU and Warner Bros. apparently shifting gears on their policy of having only one live-action incarnation of their DC Comics’ characters at any time. There are also a number of reasons why Ryan might have elected to return as a new character rather than leave the series outright.
Matt Ryan has been a mainstay of the Arrowverse since before there was officially a shared multiverse of alternate DC realities connecting every live-action adaptation of a DC Comics property. He first played the blue-collar magus in NBC’s short-lived Constantine series. While the fan-backed effort to save Constantine from cancellation ultimately failed, Ryan proved popular enough in the role to earn a cameo in Arrow season 4, where Constantine showed up in Star City after Oliver Queen called in a favor to secure John’s help in resurrecting Sara Lance. Ryan returned to play Constantine again in several episodes of Legends of Tomorrow, becoming a regular member of the Waverider crew in seasons 4, 5, and 6. Ryan also played Constantine to great acclaim in several animated films, including a solo movie, Constantine: City of Demons.
When it was announced that JJ Abrams was producing a Constantine reboot for HBO Max, fans of the 2014 Constantine series hoped that Matt Ryan would be afforded a chance to play John Constantine on a platform without the censorship of broadcast television and that the new series might pick up the storyline of the original show. Sadly, these hopes were dashed almost immediately with the announcement that Abrams was seeking out a person of color to play a new version of John Constantine. It was presumed that Ryan would continue to play Constantine in the Arrowverse, until the recent announcement that Constantine would be leaving Legends of Tomorrow after season 6, and that Ryan would return as a new original character, a scientist from the early 20th century named Dr. Gwyn Davies.
As for why Matt Ryan is returning to Legends of Tomorrow in a new role, it’s possible that he was still under contract and that, unable to continue playing John Constantine, he was given a new part to play until his contract expired. This seems unlikely, however, given Ryan’s philosophical comments regarding the recasting, saying that “in the end, John Constantine will walk his path alone. The time has come for John to part ways with the Legends, and for me to part ways with John.” Ryan’s love for the Arrowverse has been apparent in his interviews and interactions with fans over the past few years and it seems likely he’d be unwilling to part with that, even if he had to give up playing Constantine for one reason or another.
The apparent change in policy is maddening for many reasons. While previous announcements from Warner Bros. indicated they were moving away from a single universe in their cinematic adaptations and adopting a multiversal model, the fact that John Constantine has been forced out of Legends of Tomorrow flies in the face of that idea. Warner Bros. previously held a policy of only allowing one live-action adaptation of their DC Comics characters at a time, to prevent confusion. This is reportedly what led to the producers of Arrow abandoning a long-running storyline centering around the Arrowverse version of the Suicide Squad and the show killing off their versions of Deadshot and Amanda Waller in anticipation of the 2016 Suicide Squad movie.
Whatever the reason for John Constantine being removed from Legends of Tomorrow, keeping Ryan on the show in some capacity is a smart move. Ryan is a popular actor with a huge following among Constantine fans and Warner Bros. could sink the new HBO Max series before it has a chance to launch if the fans believe Ryan was treated badly. The company would do well to remember the fan outcry after Sara Lance was killed off in Arrow season 3 and fans rallied in support of actress Caity Lotz, resulting in her character’s resurrection and a new role on Legends of Tomorrow.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/legends-tomorrow-matt-ryan-recast-not-constantine-reason/