Walter Hamada Hired at Paramount Following DC Films Exit
About a month after his voluntary exit from DC Films, Walter Hamada has found a new job at Paramount Pictures.
Deadline has reported that Walter Hamada has entered a multi-year production contract with Paramount Pictures starting on the first day of 2023. Hamada is revisiting his horror roots and will be overseeing the company’s horror output, which recently had a breakthrough success in the form of Smile. Hamada’s deal covers both the theatrical window and streaming movies for Paramount Plus. Paramount Pictures President and CEO Brian Robbins said the following about Hamada’s hire:
“With his track record for groundbreaking success, [Walter Hamada] is the ideal partner and visionary to build out our mainstream horror genre franchise business. As evidenced by the fantastic performance of Smile, there is a tremendous appetite for original, high-concept storytelling in the global marketplace, and we look forward to a long and successful partnership.”
Hamada also chipped in with a statement of his own:
“I am thrilled to collaborate with Paramount Pictures with the singular goal of creating exceptional movies in the horror genre. Over the course of my career, nothing has been more gratifying than discovering emerging, first-time filmmakers and writers and unleashing their brilliance in a studio setting. Thank you to Brian and the entire team at Paramount Pictures for this tremendous opportunity, I can’t wait to get started.”
Walter Hamada spent a substantial amount of time at New Line, overseeing the success of franchises like The Conjuring and its many spin-offs, and turning two IT movies into two of the biggest horror hits of all time. Hamada’s connections with James Wan allowed him to land the job at DC Films ahead of the release of Aquaman, which is thus far the only billion-dollar movie in the entire DCU franchise, along with the billion-dollar Joker standalone movie, which is the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. While David Zaslav was looking for an overseer for all DC content going forward, Hamada was initially expected to stay at least for a time to help with the transition, although new Warner Brothers Pictures heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy wanted him to stick around longer. Unfortunately, the sudden cancellation of Batgirl without any internal discussion led him to decide to exit his position when Black Adam was released, even as Zaslav offered him a package to keep working at New Line. Thankfully, it didn’t take them very long to find replacements in the form of James Gunn and Peter Safran.
Grant Davis is a freelance writer who has covered entertainment news for more than seven years. His articles have frequently appeared in Star Wars News Net as well as as other entertainment-related websites. As someone who grew up on Star Wars and comic book movies, he’s completely thrilled with the current era of genre entertainment.
