Whatever happened to Emerald Fennell‘s “Zatanna“? DC fans already know that the “Wuthering Heights” director’s “demented” script about the magician superhero was declared dead in late 2023 after James Gunn and Peter Safran started their DCU rebrand. Still, mystery swirls about the project, which was a part of JJ Abrams‘ plans to develop the “Justice League Dark” IP in the DCEU. What exactly did Fennell have in mind for the cult favorite character, and was it a fresh take on the superhero genre?
Fennell talked about “Zatanna” in a new interview with the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, and to the surprise of no one, she revealed her take on the character was “really dark,” and not what Abrams and Bad Robot had in mind for the superhero. “I think what I’ve learned now, and then I just finished “Promising Young Woman,” [was that] there was this huge thing in this world that I’d never operated in, and…it was a kind of superhero movie,” Fennell started. “And I was like, ‘okay, 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 the woman in the middle of a nervous breakdown, I would say.”
As Fennell puts it, that script idea was “maybe a little too far away from the genre,” and that she had written something “maybe too personal for the studio.” “It was really dark, the writer-director continued, “I haven’t read it for a really long time because I found it really difficult. Because also the thing is, 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 maybe delivered the thing that they wanted.”
Of course, since Fennell penned her “Zatanna” script, she’s had another major success in 2023’s “Saltburn,” with potentially another one, her “Wuthering Heights” adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, hitting theaters this weekend. Would she have more confidence in what she brought to “Zatanna” if she reread the script now? “I wonder if I read it now, I’d be more generous towards myself,” said Fennell. “But I felt like I wish I’d been able to, like, deliver the thing that they wanted. And I think, you know, they were really lovely about it. You’re making me remember scenes, [and] oh, nobody would have made that. Nobody would have made it.”
In Fennell’s defense, a movie like the one she had in mind for “Zatanna,” ie, one that didn’t cater to a major studio’s desires, sounds like the antidote the bloated genre needed back in 2021-2022. “Superhero fatigue” was beginning to set in then, and Warner Bros. was banking on misfires like “The Flash” and “Black Adam” to steady the DCEU ship. Was Fennell’s “Zatanna,” centered on a deep-cut comics character, the ultimate answer for the franchise? Surely not, but the general audience had begun to want something different, and a super heroine on the verge of a nervous breakdown certainly would have been that.
Flash-forward to the present: would Fennell helm a comic book movie, say one centered on Wonder Woman, if given the chance? Said the director, “Well, that would be wonderful,” but also conceded that she “can only make the one thing that I’m preoccupied with at a time” and that she’s “not confident enough as a director to work on somebody else’s thing.” “If I can’t go to my imaginary world, then I feel very marooned,” Fennell continued. Her latest, “Wuthering Heights,” while an adaptation of a classic novel, fits that bill: a project steeped in her imagination. In other words, if Fennell ever returns to the superhero genre, she’ll do it on her terms, whether the powers that be like her vision or not.
Check out Emerald Fennell’s entire interview with “Happy Sad Confused” below.
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