DC has just quietly axed another upcoming solo movie for a popular comic book character, but the odd thing is this one seems to have avoided inflaming angry fans. Reams of DC projects have been canned as part of the massive Warner Bros. Discovery turnover, and each disappointing announcement has earned the ire of once loyal lovers of the franchise. Except the latest, it seems, although perhaps its the easily missed method by which the news was announced that’s allowed it to fly under the radar.
The movie in question is the Zatanna film that was in development over at HBO Max. The first movie outing for DC’s stage-performing sorceress had previously garnered a lot of positive buzz thanks to Promising Young Woman‘s Emerald Fennell being attached to provide the script. However, in an article examining the overall state of the DCEU, The Hollywood Reporter mentioned that Zatanna is among the streaming exclusives that have been “scrapped” by new CEO David Zaslav.
Redditor u/InjusticeGMain is wondering why nobody is kicking up a fuss over this news, then, given how much interest there once was in bringing Zatanna Zatara to the DCEU.
A glimpse at the replies to this post answers the OP’s question. Many jaded fans revealed that a combination of the project being so early in development and their general cynicism around WB’s handling of all things DC meant they never really got excited about the possibility of a Zatanna flick in the first place, so that’s why they’re not heartbroken over this not-altogether shocking update. If you don’t get your hopes up, you can’t be let down.
After the failure of Guillermo del Toro’s Justice League Dark movie, J.J. Abrams’ JLD TV series, and now this project, it seems like Zatanna is cursed not to debut in the DCEU. Although, maybe some day this promising young witch will finally get her due.