Matt Ryan will return for Legends of Tomorrow season 7 but not as John Constantine. Legends of Tomorrow season 6 is currently on hiatus due to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Toyko and will return on the CW on August 8, 2021. Shortly after the season wraps, season 7 will premiere on October 13, 2021, with a familiar face joining the crew of the Waverider.
Ryan first played the role of John Constantine on the NBC series Constantine which ran for one season from 2014 to 2015. Shortly after the series was canceled, the character made a guest appearance on The CW's Arrow, with Ryan reprising his role and establishing a loose connection between the canceled NBC series and the rest of the Arrowverse. He made a few guest appearances in Legends of Tomorrow season 3 as well, before joining the crew full time in season 4, and has become a long-standing member of the team having personal connections to Sara Lance, Astra Logue, and Zari Tarazi. However, it appears that John Constantine's time with the Legends is coming to end.
According to CBR, Ryan will return for Legends of Tomorrow season 7, but not as Constantine. Instead, Ryan will play a new character Dr. Gwyn Davies, who is described as an eccentric early 20th-century scientist who might be the team’s only hope next season. Constantine's arc will end after this season of the series. Ryan spoke about the end of his time playing John Constantine:
"As everyone who loves him knows, 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. I'm really excited to be creating this new role on the show and having some fun with it -- discovering how this new character fits in and causes some trouble for the Legends. "
This isn't the first time an actor from Legends of Tomorrow has played multiple characters. Maisie Richardson-Sellers played the role of Amaya Jiwe/Vixen in seasons 2 and 3 of the series, and even though her character left the series, Sellers played the shape-shifter, Charlie, in seasons 4 and 5 saying she was using Amaya form. Tala Ashe plays two versions of the same character from different timelines: Zari Tomaz and Zari Tarazi. Brandon Routh played both the Atom and Superman thanks to the DC Multiverse. Ryan's new character Dr. Davis could be a distant ancestor of John Constantine, or the show will have some fun meta-commentary about how he looks like Constantine.
The big news coming out of this is the fact that John Constantine's story arc is ending and what that means for the wider DC adaptations. Given that Constantine is set to get his own HBO Max series, it could be that DC and Warner Bros. don't want two versions of Constantine going at the same time. That series is expected to tie in with the upcoming Justice League Dark series produced by Bad Robot and possibly the upcoming Zatanna film. Ryan has been a fan favorite for years, and while it will be sad to see him hang up the trench coat, Legends of Tomorrow gave the character another chance when it seemed that he was done on television.
Source: CBR