DC Studios seems to be giving plenty of heroes their first time in the spotlight for the new DC Universe. However, it seems the long-awaited Zatanna project isn’t one of them.
A Zatanna movie was first announced way back in 2021, being set to tie into the proposed Justice League Dark universe that J.J. Abrams and his production company Bad Robot were cooking up. Almost nothing has been heard from the project since. During a recent interview to promote their latest project, Saltburn, writer Emerald Fennell confirmed the project is dead at DC Studios:
“No, no, it’s not happening. I loved it [though],” Fennell explained on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “This was something I was working on before [Promising Young Woman]. It was when J.J. Abrams had just arrived at Warner Bros. and was going to reboot the Dark Universe, and they were going to make this kind of dark villain universe or sort of hero/villain universe.”
“I thought he was the coolest, and his team at Robot was so cool and interesting and because I love genre of all kinds. I was definitely interested,” she continued. “I was like, ‘I don’t know a huge about the whole superhero genre; it’s not a genre I naturally gravitate towards, so I’d love to know how does one make [a superhero film] like that, for someone like me who doesn’t know so much and wouldn’t necessarily buy a ticket for that first time around. So it was that kinda thing, and Zatanna was a really, really cool character.”
It’s certainly a shame that Zatanna won’t be getting her time to shine in the DCU, given she’s one of the most beloved characters to have never gotten her own live-action project. It’s possible that DC’s James Gunn and Peter Safran will develop a project with her down the line, but for now, any chance of Emerald Fennell’s vision seeing the light of day is, as Zatanna would say, “raen orez”!
The future of the DC Universe
James Gunn and Peter Safran told journalists that their vision for the DC Universe includes locked scripts, wiggle room, and a unified storyline across film, television, animation, and video game projects. The two explained that the DC Universe could bring back elements from previous DC regimes, meaning that their eight-to-year plan is not a full reboot.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom have all been released following the announcement of the new DC Universe, all four projects struggling at the box office. Will the characters from those movies make appearances in the new DCU? Only Gunn and Safran know.
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