Warner Bros. puts fate of DC movies in the hands of new president Walter Hamada
By Buckie Wells
With Justice League acting as the final nail in the coffin, Warner Bros. appoints Walter Hamada as the new president of DC film productions.
In 2017, Warner Bros. dropped two big DC films: Wonder Woman and Justice League. Obviously, one of those films did really well and the other totally bombed for a hundred different reasons. And though Justice League made some money, it didn’t do what it should’ve accomplished as the follow-up to Wonder Woman or a live-action big-screen meet-up of some of the most iconic comic book superheroes of all time. Unlike Wonder Woman, Justice League completely fell off people’s radars.
Funnily enough, it’s actually Wonder Woman‘s success that makes Warner Bros.’ plans for DC films tougher to figure out. They can’t just do Flashpoint and reboot the entire thing. In fact, they shouldn’t do Flashpoint at all because it’s too much for mainstream moviegoers anyway. But since Wonder Woman, and specifically, Gal Gadot dominated pop culture talk from June 2017 onward, it would be impossible to replace her.
Still, after Justice League (really, it should’ve been after Batman v Superman anyway), something needed to be done. And finally, Warner Bros. has done it. Or at least, started to.
By naming Walter Hamada as the new president of DC films at Warner Bros., the studio has essentially found their Kevin Feige (of Marvel Entertainment) or Kathleen Kennedy (of Lucasfilm), a singular unit that will oversee and steer the films in one cohesive direction. What the DCEU needs is someone who can firmly guide its directors and producers, and hopefully, Hamada is that guy.
Geoff Johns and Jon Berg, unfortunately, weren’t those guys. Although Hamada will continue to work with Johns (sorta), his background in the horror genre is very compelling. Especially when one considers his history with Warner Bros.’ other successful 2017 film, It, he already seems very promising. So far, the greatest directors on the horizon at DC movies are James Wan and David F. Sandberg, both of whom come from horror as well.
What a small, beautiful, Wan-centric world.
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Now that Hamada’s aboard, I hope we’ll see a lot of new (and good) announcements moving forward. That way, we can all get back to looking forward to DC films without worrying about the haters we’ll encounter along the way.