Walter Hamada, who runs DC Films, is overseeing a dizzying number of
projects, part of a swarm of comics-based stories coming from
Hollywood.
LOS ANGELES — Walter Hamada is not a typical superhero wrangler.
He doesn’t have a booming, fanboy-in-chief personality. His modest
home office, at least as it appears on Zoom, is light on the usual
cape-and-cowl collectibles. Hollywood was not even his first calling:
He set out to be a mechanical engineer.
As the president of DC Films, however, Mr. Hamada, 52, manages the
movie careers of Wonder Woman, Batman, Cyborg, the Flash, Superman and
every other DC Comics superhero. And the new course he has charted for
them is dizzying.
The most expensive DC movies (up to four a year, starting in 2022) are
designed for release in theaters, Mr. Hamada said. Additional
superhero films (two annually is the goal, perhaps focused on riskier
characters like Batgirl and Static Shock) will arrive exclusively on
HBO Max, the fledgling streaming service owned by WarnerMedia.
In addition, DC Films, which is part of Warner Bros., will work with
filmmakers to develop movie offshoots — TV series that will run on HBO
Max and interconnect with their big-screen endeavors.