Skip to main content

Walter Hamada to helm the DCEU - Situation Review

Yesterday afternoon Warner Bros. announced that Executive Producer Walter Hamada (The Conjuring, It) has been named President of DC films. The announcement comes after Jon Berg left the position in December due to Justice League (2017, Zack Snyder) met disappointing box office results. Warner's President Toby Emmerich had this to say about Hamada:

"Walter is creative, resourceful and committed to excellence and will bring those qualities to his oversight of our Superhero films. He's a terrific production executive and served as an executive producer on two of the summer's most popular films, New Line's It and Annabelle: Creation. I'm confident that Walter and Geoff (Johns), working with our filmmaking partners, will deliver films that will resonate with both broad global audiences as well as DC fanboys and fangirls. Walter's a great addition to the Warner Bros. Pictures team, and I look forward to working with him in his new post."

Walter Hamada

As it says in Emmerich's statement, Hamada oversaw both It (2017, Andres Muschietti) and Annabelle: Creation (2017, David Sandberg). And whilst I haven't yet seen those films I can't deny how successful they were at the box office. It earned $698.1 million globally, making it the highest grossing horror film of all time, while Annabelle: Creation earned $306.5 million. Very good box office returns, particularly in the horror genre. Hamada has also overseen Warner Bros.'s The Conjuring franchise, which has become very popular among horror fans. In fact, the horror films at Warner Bros. has become one of their strongest divisions. So, if Hamada can bring his skills as an executive producer from the horror division into the Superhero division, then things might swing in DC's favour.

Geoff Johns

Many fans were hoping that Geoff Johns would fill the role of Head of DC films. Both he and Jon Berg co-worked together on DC's 2017 slate. And, whilst Wonder Woman (2017, Patty Jenkins) was a big success, becoming the highest grossing Superhero origin story of all time, Justice League was a disaster. It was able to break-even, but it wasn't the success that Warner Bros. was depending on. So I believe Johns has now been restricted to a consulting role for Hamada, to suggest to him what direction the DCEU could go

Kevin Feige

The main reason why the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the well-oiled machine that it is today is Executive Producer Kevin Feige. Who oversees every film made by the Marvel Studios. Even the new Star Wars films have Kathleen Kennedy overseeing all of them. But the DCEU hasn't really had someone in charge of their films. Whilst they tried to have Geoff Johns and Jon Berg co-lead the franchise together that didn't really work out. But now that they have just one person at the helm then perhaps things will begin to run a bit smoother. Now, whilst Hamada hasn't yet proven that he's Feige material, as he hasn't really worked on a franchise as important as this one, his body of work 

James Wan & David Sandberg

Two directors who are currently working on DC films at the moment are James Wan (Aquaman) and David Sandberg (Shazam). And I suspect that they both helped get Hamada this job, as both have worked on films that he produced. What this also suggests that the suits at Warner Bros. are feeling quite confident in these two projects. As, if they were able to get Hamada this role then they must be doing something right!

DC's Future

Ever since Justice League, the future of the DCEU has been put into question. With many suggesting a reboot with the Flashpoint film. Whilst nothing else has been announced yet concerning the DCEU, and this looks to be a quiet year for them, with just one film being released in December. But I expect there will be some changes made to any future planned projects for DC. Hopefully for the better. But Hamada has had quite a successful career so far and I imagine he will continue this streak into the DCEU.

So this is my analysis of Walter Hamada's recent promotion as President of DC films. What do you think of the news? Are you excited or anxious about it? Leave a comment down below. And, if you enjoyed what you've read then please follow this blog for more content. Thank you for reading. :)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

SDCC 2018. Top Five Movie Trailers

SDCC has come and gone, and with it, a whole load of movie trailers have dropped for fans to sink their teeth into! Overall, it seems that Warner Bros. dominated the convention, bringing in new content from most of their divisions, such as DC, The Wizarding World and their Monster Universe. So, without further ado, here is my top 5 list of the movie trailers that were released this year for Comic-Con. 5. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald The hype for this new chapter in the Wizarding World continues with the latest trailer. Whilst the trailer doesn't really reveal a lot more than the previous trailer it does give us some good moments. The beginning with Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) as a child showing his greatest fear is working behind a desk or that Dumbledore (Jude Law)  sees Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) in the Mirror of Erised. We even get to see new beasts, such as the strange cat creatures, and the first look at Nicholas Flemel, the creator of the Phil...

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Review (No Spoilers)

The final episode in the sequel trilogy, and the overall Skywalker Saga, is finally out! Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019, J.J Abrams) will hopefully answer the questions that have been set up since the beginning of this trilogy in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015, J.J Abrams) . But due to fans being displeased with this new trilogy, such as the highly negative response from fans after the previous instalment Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017, Rian Johnson)  and with the latest anthology movie Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018, Ron Howard) being a financial disaster, can this movie live up to the success of its predecessors and redeem the franchise in the eyes of fans? First Thoughts This movie is good, I liked it as a movie. The action's good, the visuals are great and the characters are fun to watch. But as a finale to the overall Skywalker Saga, it's quite disappointing. The story feels more like it's trying to make up for lost time rather than tell a good stor...

Auteurship: David Fincher

The Auteur theory is that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision.  I am going to use  David Fincher as an example, because he usually has similar aspects throughout all of his films such as bleakness of a setting; several single frames that flash, low-key lighting and characters that are in the shadows so you can’t see their faces. All of these styles can be found in Fight Club (1999). In most of Fincher’s films the settings seem to have a bleak and uninteresting look to them. In Fight Club this is shown in places like the office of where Jack works, the cancer support group hall, Jack’s apartment. All of these places are just different shades of the same colour (mainly green, grey or dark orange). This is to convey a sense of misery and darkness within the storyline, which the characters are just drifting through their lives. Something that Fincher portrays beautifully in Fight Club. This is a good example of David Fincher’s position as an Au...