Emerald Fennell Dishes On Her ‘Really Dark’ Zatanna Script

Gizmodo · Feb 15, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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Movie-wise, this weekend belongs to Emerald Fennell and her take on Wuthering Heights. But did you know, or maybe just forget, that she was this close to writing a Zatanna solo movie? That was all the way back in 2021, a gig she landed not long after she’d delivered Promising Young Woman. That’s no longer moving forward, and as she told Josh Horowitz on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, the script she wrote back then came about because she was “probably going through it at the time.” As she tells it, Fennell had just finished up Promising when J.J. Abrams offered her the chance to write Zatanna. The experience was “[a] huge thing in this world I never operated in.” To connect emotionally with the character, she planned to make it about “a woman in the middle of a nervous breakdown,” which would’ve come across in the script, an idea she thinks wouldn’t have flown for Abrams or Warner Bros. for being “too dark” and not fitting in with the genre—she vaguely teased some scenes she wrote are things no other filmmaker would’ve thought up. By Fennell’s own admission, she hasn’t gone back and read her old script in years. While she thinks she’d be kinder to it now, she still wishes she could’ve given Abrams and Warner Bros. “the thing they wanted [and] deliver something amazing for them.” (And when asked about doing any DC work in general, she said she’s more interested in doing her own works.) Once that movie was canned, there’s been no official motion on bringing Zatanna to live-action with another movie or even a show. For now, fans of the character can look forward to her new solo comic from Jamal Campbell coming in April. [via Deadline] Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.