Zatanna Movie In The Works – It Could Usher in a New Era for DC Movies
Comics and DC animation regular Zatanna is getting a shot at the big, live-action silver screen.
Ever since I really got into DC comics, I’ve been obsessed with Zatanna. Her showgirl-meets-spooky vibes are charming, and her power is incredible. But Zee doesn’t often get her own comic book titles or stand-alone stories (not as many as I think she should get anyway.) But that may not be true for much longer… Evig Anataz a eivom!
In Justice League Unlimited, Zatanna uses a locator spell to help Batman track down Circe, courtesy of Warner Bros.
Who is Zatanna?
Zatanna Zatara first appeared in Hawkman #4 (1964) while searching for her missing father, who was also a magician. Afterward, she appeared sporadically in other character titles and helped the Justice League until joining the group in 1978.
She was raised by her father and learned later that her mother, Sindella, was a member of an ancient magical race known as homo magi. Publicly, she’s a gifted magician and stage personality. As a child, her father taught her self-defense, and she was also friends with a young Bruce Wayne.
Courtesy of DC Comics
Her inherited magic gives her many impressive abilities: telekinesis, teleportation, telepathy, transfiguration, astral projection, and escapism. She can travel through dimensions, manipulate time, and create energy blasts and force fields. At her most powerful, she can influence the probability of things happening around her, and she can even alter some aspects of a person’s mind, like memories, perceptions, and biases. When performing spells, she recites them backward.
She appears in Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing when her father sacrifices his life to save hers after a defunct seance. She serves as a mentor and protector to Timothy Hunter in Neil Gaiman’s The Books of Magic. In the DC event Identity Crisis, Zatanna uses her magic to erase the memories of various characters, including her childhood friend Batman. Many aspects of that storyline were the worst, but the event did influence Zatanna’s sense of responsibility for her powers.
Zatanna joins the team in Young Justice, courtesy of Warner Bros.
Zee is also a frequent guest in the DC animated sphere, from her appearances in Batman: The Animated Series to Young Justice, she’s been featured in dozens of team-ups. She’s a star in the animated feature Justice League Dark, along with Johnny Constantine, Swamp Thing, Deadman, and Etrigan.
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
A Zatanna Movie is in the Works!
In March, we found out that Emerald Fennel is working with the character to bring her into the DC cinematic universe. As the writer of the critically acclaimed film Promising Young Woman and a show-runner for Killing Eve, Fennel certainly knows how to find a laugh in the middle of a dark mood.
Speaking to Empire about the project, Fennell says, “It’ll be an opportunity to make something really quite dark, and that appealed to me, to make something big and scary.”
Zatanna wows the crowd, courtesy of Warner Bros.
I’m encouraged by Fennel’s enthusiasm for the project, and while I’m excited to finally see DC put some Dark in their Justice, I’m hopeful that Zee won’t be all shadows and no showbiz. Can you imagine the Mistress of Magic at a dark Gotham bar, the final act in a lineup of burlesque dancers and aerial silks performers?
On a deeper note, Zatanna’s powers aren’t an endless well; they can diminish with overuse. They’re also connected to her psyche. After she used her powers to essentially remove a person’s agency, her powers suffer because of the guilt she feels. No doubt this emotional connection to her powers will play a role in a big-screen adaptation.
Zatanna (2010) covers by Adam Hughes, courtesy of DC comics
I cannot wait for Zatanna to hit the big screen, and for DC to open the creaky iron gate that holds its dark, mystical universe at bay. Will the film draw from comic book storylines, and if so, which ones? It’s hard to say; I’m just hoping for some DC Dark cameos, like Klarion the Witch Boy, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, and The House of Secrets.
