Constantine: The House of Mystery trailer: Matt Ryan voices Constantine for R-rated animated short

When the DC Comics-inspired NBC series Constantine was cancelled after just one season in 2015, that could have been the end of Matt Ryan’s time playing John Constantine, “a British exorcist and occult detective who hunts the supernatural.” But he kept being brought back to the role for appearances on episodes of Arrow, Batwoman, and The Flash, and multiple seasons of Legends of Tomorrow. He also got to voice the character for the animated projects Justice League Dark, Constantine: City of Demons, and Justice League Dark: Apokolips War. Now that J.J. Abrams and his company Bad Robot are developing a reboot of the Constantine property for HBO Max, it looks like Ryan will no longer be playing the character in live-action… but he’s still providing his voice. A trailer for an “extended length” short called Constantine: The House of Mystery, which has Ryan speaking Constantine’s lines, has been released online and can be seen in the embed above.

Rated R for “some bloody violence”, Constantine: The House of Mystery will be getting a Blu-ray and 4K Digital release on May 3rd… and to entice viewers more, this short is being bundled with three other (previously released) DC Showcase shorts: Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth!, The Losers, and Blue Beetle.

Set after the events of Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, Constantine: The House of Mystery has the following synopsis:

John Constantine wakes up in the eerie House of Mystery with no recollection of how he got there. Fortunately, Zatanna and his friends are all there. Unfortunately, they have a bad habit of turning into demons and ripping him to shreds, over and over again!

Directed by Matt Peters from a script by Ernie Altbacker, the short also features Camilla Luddington as Zatanna, Ray Chase as Etrigan, Robin Atkin Downes as Negral, and Damian O’Hare as Chas. Grey Griffin and Lou Diamond Phillips are in the voice cast as well, but it hasn’t been revealed who they’re playing.

The Constantine comics also served as the basis of a 2005 film starring Keanu Reeves (watch it HERE). The HBO Max series will present him as a “young Londoner” and the producers are looking for a “diverse lead” to play the character. The show will “focus more on the horror elements of the comics rather than the religious ones” and will have crossovers with the Justice League Dark series that Bad Robot is also working on.