Walter Hamada, the Warner Bros. executive in charge of DC’s film slate, has extended his contract through 2023, giving him the opportunity to work on the first few films following The Flash, which is seemingly a soft reboot of the DC Films continuity designed to bring the movies more into line with Hamada’s sensibilities and WarnerMedia’s corporate priorities. One major shift that Hamada has been talking about since this summer’s DC FanDome event is the introduction of DC’s multiverse to the film canon, beginning in The Flash, which will introduce Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman to the modern day DC movies.
According to Variety, who broke the story, Hamada will continue to report to Warner Bros. Picture Group Chairman Toby Emmerich. Hamada has been an increasingly visible presence since FanDome, announcing in December that DC planned to mount an ambitious slate that split its releases between theatrical and straight-to-HBO Max fare. He was also the subject of a lengthy profile in The New York Times which ran on December 27.
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Hamada came to DC Films in 2018 from Warner’s New Line Cinema imprint, the home of A Nightmare on Elm Street, where he was executive vice president of production.
Shortly after Hamda’s profile in the Times dropped, he was hit with a new round of controversy when Justice League star Ray Fisher said on social media that he would not work with Hamada on future projects, calling the executive “
Fisher has alleged that Warner Bros.’ decision to bring in filmmaker Joss Whedon to reshoot Justice League resulted in a toxic work environment for the movie’s cast, most of whom have shown themselves to be fiercely loyal to the movie’s original director, Zack Snyder. Fisher’s claims have led to a contentious series of exchanges between the actor and the studio, with Justice League producers Geoff Johns and Jon Berg also being targets of Fisher’s frustration when he said they failed to support the cast amid the alleged abuse.
Hamada has expressed enthusiasm for bringing more “Elseworlds”-style projects in the vein of Joker to the studio, allowing DC to use their multiverse to make movies that are not tethered to a single, interconnected timeline. This is somewhat ironic, given that the filmmakers behind Joker have claimed that Hamada did not see the potential in the pitch when they presented it.
“What the multiverse allows you to do is lean into this idea of, you can tell just great stories and you don’t have to be really as focused on, it has to fit in the same continuity,” Hamada explained during FanDome. “On one Earth we have this Gal and Jason and Ezra version of the JL and we can continue telling those stories, while on a separate Earth, we can have a more grounded, real, Year Two Batman, and build out that world and not really worry about continuity, story elements, and et cetera. It’s really the best of both worlds.”
