Was Zatanna too wild for the DC Universe? Emerald Fennell gives her thoughts on why the long-awaited project was ultimately cancelled.
Emerald Fennell has become known for a lot of things in the world of film discourse. Her projects like Saltburn and Wuthering Heights are unabashedly erotic, with her characters often being embodying traits that leave an audience split. However, before her most recent rise, most likely knew her as the director behind the cancelled Zatanna film for the DC Universe.
As with many canned projects from the old DC Universe (Deadshot, Cyborg, Justice League Dark), almost nothing is actually known about Zatanna. But in helping promote Wuthering Heights, Emerald Fennell spoke out on why she thinks the project was cancelled. The answer? The director may have just been too dark for the DC Universe.
“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?’ Which is, sort of, a woman in the middle of a nervous breakdown. 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.”
Emerald Fennell’s Return To The DC Universe
Of course, Zatanna was being developed at a time where Emerald Fennell was still rather new to being in the limelight of film discourse. Now having handled major projects like Saltburn and Wuthering Heights, there’s a question of whether or not the director would be open to the DC Universe. The answer, however, may be more complex than many were hoping.
“Well, that would be wonderful. What I do know is that I can only make the one thing I’m preoccupied with at a time. I can’t really do other people’s things. Or maybe it will happen! But I like to just – if I can’t go to my imaginary worlds, then I feel very marooned. So there’s are really kind of the only places I can work from. Because I’m not confident enough as a director to work on somebody else’s thing.”
While it’s likely that this type of statement would have disqualified Emerald Fennell from working on a superhero project in the past, the DC Universe is in a bold new era. James Gunn is putting focus on letting creatives tell their stories. And given how bold Fennell is as a director, she’d certainly deliver something newsworthy, Zatanna or otherwise.
Emerald Fennell’s Zatanna film has been officially cancelled. Stay tuned for the latest news regarding the future of the DC Universe!
