There was a moment when DC fans thought we were about to dive headfirst into the shadowy, supernatural side of the DCEU with Zatanna leading the charge. That didn’t happen. Now, director Emerald Fennell has opened up about what her version of the character looked like and why it ultimately wasn’t meant to be.
Fennell, known for Saltburn and Wuthering Heights, was brought on in 2021 to write a Zatanna movie as part of J.J. Abrams’ planned Justice League Dark slate. The idea was to carve out a mystical corner of the DC Universe. But when DC Studios formed under new leadership, that entire direction was scrapped.
The closest that era got to materializing was a Constantine series that even reached the casting stage, with Gangs of London actor Sope Dirisu reportedly being eyed for the lead. Then that vanished too.
Speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Fennell reflected on what her take on Zatanna actually was and why it might have been too much for the studio.
“I think it was demented because I was probably going through it at the time. I just finished Promising Young Woman, and there was this huge thing in this world that I’d never operated in.
‘“I was like, ‘Okay, how do I make the version of a superhero movie that I would connect to emotionally?’ [I was a] woman in the middle of a nervous breakdown.”
That headspace shaped the script in a very personal way.
“So it’s a script reflective of a woman in the middle of a nervous breakdown, I would say. I suppose it just meant that it was probably too far away from the genre.
“It was really dark. I haven’t read it for a really long time because I found it really difficult.”
That version of Zatanna sounds intense, intimate, and a long way from the more traditional superhero formula Warner Bros. may have been hoping for at the time. Even before the James Gunn and Peter Safran reboot, it seems like the project was already on shaky ground.
Fennell also spoke warmly about Abrams and the opportunity itself.
“I love JJ so much, and he took a chance on offering me to do it, and I really wanted to deliver something amazing for them, and I always felt like I hadn’t quite delivered the thing that they wanted.”
It’s a candid admission. Fennell wanted to swing big. She just might have swung in a direction the studio wasn’t ready to follow.
Interestingly, she hasn’t revisited the script since writing it, though she admits she wonders if she’d feel differently about it now with some distance. Time has a funny way of softening self-criticism.
Zatanna Zatara is one of DC’s most powerful magic users. A half-Homo Magi sorcerer, she casts spells by speaking incantations backwards. She carries on the legacy of her father, the Golden Age magician hero Zatara, and has fought alongside the Justice League and the Sentinels of Magic.
She’s stylish, theatrical, and capable of bending reality itself. There’s a lot of cinematic potential there.
Before Abrams’ attempt to build out Justice League Dark, Guillermo del Toro had also tried to get a version of the team off the ground. That door has since closed as well.
As of now, there’s no indication that DC Studios has plans for Zatanna or Justice League Dark in the new DCU. But hearing Fennell describe her version makes it hard not to be curious. A psychologically raw, dark magic story centered on a heroine unraveling while wielding immense power? That sounds like it could’ve been an interesting movie.
Would you have wanted to see Fennell’s darker take on Zatanna hit the big screen?
