Amidst the ending of HBO Max’s Batgirl movie and the clear desire of the head of Warner Bros. Discovery director David Zaslav to find new leadership for the DC universe, DC Films president Walter Hamada is on the verge of leaving the studio and has consulted with an adviser, sources say. tell the Hollywood Reporter.
Hamada has now agreed to stay on until at least the release of Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam on October 21, according to sources familiar with the situation. “He’s taking a break,” says a source. “The decision to become that opponent has not yet been made.” Hamada could not be reached for comment.
The tension comes as Zaslav vowed to make what he called a “reset” at DC, with a 10-year plan he hopes will allow the brand to compete with Disney’s Marvel Studios, which has created the biggest movie franchise in history. “We believe we can build a much stronger, sustainable growth business outside of DC,” Zaslav said during Thursday’s earnings call. “Within this, we will focus on quality. We’re not going to release any movie before it’s ready… DC is something we can do better.”
According to reports, the co-chairmen and CEOs of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, who are overseeing DC until Zaslav settles into new leadership, told Hamada at a recent test screening of Black Adam that Batgirl, a $90 million movie. after production, it would be shelved. The explanation was that given Zaslav’s strategy, the picture wasn’t strong enough to release theatrically and was too expensive for a streamer. The company, under pressure to reduce costs, chose to write down the project.
A source with knowledge of the situation says Hamada was upset that he wasn’t consulted and worried about the impact on those involved in making the film. On August 2, before the talent and their representatives were informed of the decision, the New York Post broke the news that the film had been shelved. The Post reported that the film had low test scores and said a source described it as “unredeemable”.
In May, Warner Bros. Discovery canceled another DC movie headed to the streamer, Wonder Twins, right after KJ Apa and Isabel May starred.
Hamada took on the role in 2018 at a difficult time for DC, which was struggling to find its footing after Justice League (2017) flopped at the box office and there was no clear path forward for its cinematic universe.
During his tenure, Hamada has forged relationships with directors such as Marvel favorite James Gunn, bringing him on board for The Suicide Squad (2021) and keeping him on the block for Peacemaker, an HBO Max spinoff . Instead of striving for the tightly-knit universe of Marvel movies, the DC properties under his watch were only loosely connected — and sometimes took place in entirely separate universes, like Joker (2019), which outperformed with more of $1 billion at the box office and beat Joaquin Phoenix for the Best Actor Oscar and Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022), which brought in $769.2 million worldwide, a strong number for the pandemic.
Prior to DC Films, Hamada was Evp Producer at New Line, where he oversaw the label’s highly successful horror franchise The Conjuring and It (2017), which grossed $701.8 million at the box office.