The DC character Zatanna just cannot seem to get her movie made. It would seem that every attempt to develop a solo project for Zatanna is ill-fated, but it hasn’t been for a lack of trying. The closest she has come was when acclaimed filmmaker Emerald Fennell (Saltburn, Wuthering Heights) was tapped to bring a Zatanna movie to life for Warner Bros. Discovery and Bad Robot, but the project fizzled out before it could see the light of day.
In a recent interview for the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Fennell addressed what happened with her axed Zatanna film. She explained her approach to the project, noting how her take on the comic book character needed to be something she could connect with on an emotional level. Fennell wrote a screenplay that portrayed Zatanna as a “woman in the middle of a nervous breakdown,” and at the end of the day, it was probably too far removed from the original comic books to get the green light for production.
“I think it was demented because I was probably going through it at the time,” she explained. “I’d just finished Promising Young Woman, and there was this huge thing in this world I’d never operated in. And, again, it was a kind of superhero movie, and I was like, ‘How do I make the version of a superhero movie that I would connect to emotionally?’ Which is sort of the woman in the middle of a nervous breakdown, so it’s a script reflective of a woman in the middle of a nervous breakdown. And in terms of what that means, I suppose it just meant that it was probably too far away from the genre.”
Fennell continued, “It was really dark. I haven’t read it for a really long time, because I found it really difficult. Because, also the thing is, I love JJ [Abrams] so much, and he took a chance offering me to do it, and I really wanted to deliver something amazing for them. And I always felt like I hadn’t quite maybe delivered the thing that they wanted. So, I haven’t read it since, and I wonder if I read it now, I’d be more generous toward myself. But I felt like, I wished I’d been able to deliver the thing they wanted.”
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Zatanna was created by Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson, first appearing in Hawkman #4 back in 1954. She is typically depicted as a sorceress who also works as a stage magician, often seen with her trademark top hat. A live-action version of Zatanna was featured in Smallville with Serinda Swan in the role, though she has also appeared in a variety of animated projects and video games. Fennell’s unrealized project was announced in 2021 following previous failed attempts to give Zatanna her own movie.
