Writer/director Emerald Fennell, who won the Writers Guild Award last evening for Best Original Screenplay for her film Promising Young Woman, has been tapped to pen the screenplay for a theatrical feature centering on the DC Comics superhero Zatanna.
Variety is reporting that the project will be produced in conjunction with JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot production shingle, which is already working on other DC Comics-related projects.
In DC Comics lore, Zatanna is a world famous stage magician, who uses her profession to hide the fact that she is an actual magic-using superheroine. Although she most works solo, she has teamed up with other DC Comics magical and supernatural-based heroes, sometimes under the banner of Justice League Dark.
Although this project, if it goes forward, would be the first time that the character makes it to the big screen, Zatanna has appeared in a number of DC animated series and direct-to-video projects as well as having a handful of appearances in later season of Smallville, where she was portrayed by Serinda Swan. She was slated to appear in the abandoned Justice League Dark film that was under development a few years back. Although there is a new iteration of the Justice League Dark comic being developed for HBO Max as a series, there is no word as to whether Zatanna will be included on that version’s team.
Currently, Fennell is the only person attached to the project. No director or actor has so far been associated with it. However, if Fennell’s script duties are just the first step to her also taking the directorial reigns on the movie, we would not be adverse to that at all.
