Amid the collage of logo images for upcoming DC projects, as seen at Warner Bros.’ analyst day today, fans quickly noticed that Zatanna has a logo featured. This not only seemingly confirms long-simmering rumors that the character would have a live-action adaptation coming, but also that either the plan is to reuse her logo from the comic books (as projects like Superman: The Movie and Harley Quinn have done over the years) or it’s early enough in development that the studio hasn’t yet determined what kind of branding the movie (or TV show) will have when and if it finally moves out of development.
Rumors of a Zatanna movie or TV show have been around since 2018, but picked up a new sense of momentum when news broke that JJ Abrams would be producing a Justice League Dark TV series for HBO Max. Shortly after that announcement came a short-lived rumor that each key member of the team would get a movie adaptation for the streamer, which would tie in to the events of the TV show.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Zatanna, who made a live-action appearance on Smallville and was reportedly under consideration for Constantine during its one season on NBC, is one of DC’s most powerful mystics. The top-hatted sorceress casts spells by simply speaking her intent backwards — something that’s easier to visualize in comics than it is to execute onscreen, so it will be interesting to see how this most basic element of her character is dealt with in a potential live-action version.
Also included in the logos is the comic book logo for Blue Beetle, which is set to go into production soon. That film marks another of DC’s longest-rumored projects, finally confirmed officially with the hiring of a director last month.Angel Manuel Soto will direct the film, which will focus on Jaime Reyes, the third character to go by the name of Blue Beetle in the comics.
Created for a Hawkgirl story in 1964, Zatanna is the daughter of the mystic Zatara, and was created by Murphy Anderson and Gardner Fox.While she is certainly a derivative character of Zatara — another backwards-speaking mystic, who first appeared in a Fred Guardineer story in 1938’s Action Comics #1 — she had far surpassed any popularity that her father ever enjoyed, and has been a member of both the Justice League of America and Justice League Dark over the years. In recent incarnations, she has been depicted as having an on-again/off-again relationship with John Constantine.
