Dwayne Johnson has often said his Black Adam film will change “the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe” and it looks like he meant that in more ways than one as Walter Hamada has left DC Films following the film’s release.
After 15 years at Warner Bros, and four years as president of DC Films, Hamada is stepping away. The executive ran DC since 2018 and re-upped in January 2021. The latest contract extension was supposed to take him through 2023, but the arrival of David Zaslav as Warner Bros. Discovery boss changed everything.
For those keeping track, Hamada will be the fifth Warner Bros studio executive to leave following the arrival of Zaslav. His exit follows Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group chairman Toby Emmerich, President of Production and Development Courtenay Valenti, Motion Picture Group COO Carolyn Blackwood, and Animation Group EVP Allison Abbate.
Deadline notes that Hamada was offered but has turned down a producing deal. This deal refusal could be partially from WBD killing Batgirl as it entered post-production.
Sources say the executive and producer will seemingly bounce back reasonably well; Hamada was once in charge of New Line, where he oversaw The Conjuring, Friday the 13th, The Final Destination, the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, and the first installment of Stephen King’s It. Could he return to the horror genre after years of DC Films? Only time will tell.
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With David Zaslav on the hunt for his version of Marvel’s Kevin Feige, they’ll use the leftover projects from Hamada’s era and various new films like Joker 2 and Matt Reeves’ The Batman universe to hold fans over.
