DC Films Chief Leaves Warner Bros.

Walter Hamada, who has been the head of DC Films at Warner Bros. since 2008, has left the company. Hamada began his career at TriStar as an assistant, before moving to Warner Bros.’ New Line Cinema division in 2007. While there, he served as a producer on some really big films, such as The Conjuring series and It. He was largely involved in horror films from that time.

After Justice League came out and bombed at the box office, Hamada stepped in to lead the DC department at Warner Bros. He made a lot of the bigger DC films of recent history possible, from Aquaman to Joker, which is the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. Hamada was reportedly ready to leave his position after the new leadership at Warner Bros. Discovery shelved the HBO Max movie of Batgirl, but he remained on the job through the release of this week’s Black Adam, starring Dwayne Johnson as the DC antihero.

Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav has stated publicly that the studio is going to model their ten-year plan for DC movies after the MCU, and weirdly enough, it seems like they’ve already tried that, and it hasn’t quite panned out. Trying to emulate the success of Marvel doesn’t really seem like a sustainable business model. There’s only one Kevin Feige after all.

Despite Hamada’s departure, Warners has not yet found a replacement to take charge of its DC Films unit. Although there were reports that The LEGO Movie producer Dan Lin was in line assume command of the division, those articles turned out to be premature, and Lin has since dropped out of contention for the job.