Although Walter Hamada had quite the history with Warner Bros, he left the studio alongside his position as DC Films president. As such, film fans were eager to know where Hamada would be headed next. Now it’s been revealed that Walter Hamada has entered a deal with Paramount, where he will now be overseeing the studio’s horror content.
This news comes via THR. While he’s known for his work on a number of DC projects, Hamada is also notorious for being involved with such major horror properties as The Conjuring and the first It film. This certainly makes Walter Hamada a great fit to handle the horror output at Paramount. In fact, the studio already found success earlier this year with Smile, so it’s clear that horror will be a major market for Paramount to tackle going forward.
They’ve specifically noted that the new deal will be effective beginning on January 1, 2023. Furthermore, his “mandate will be to release several mid-budget horror films for theaters and streaming a year.” This was elaborated by Paramount Pictures President and CEO Brian Robbins in the following statement:
“With his track record for groundbreaking success, Walter is the ideal partner and visionary to build out our mainstream horror genre franchise business,” Robbins began. “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.”
Walter Hamada shared his own statement, emphasizing how “thrilled” he is to be working with Paramount Pictures. In fact, he goes so far as to say it is their “singular goal” to create “exceptional movies in the horror genre.” At this point, horror fans should be getting really excited. Here’s what Hamada had to say in full:
“I am thrilled to collaborate with Paramount Pictures with the singular goal of creating exceptional movies in the horror genre,” said Hamada. “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.”
While DC Films has been taken over by James Gunn and Peter Safran, it’s safe to say that Walter Hamada found his own niche as well. Hopefully these massive changes in the entertainment industry only means great things going forward. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for additional updates as we have them. As for Paramount, with such properties as Paranormal Activity and Scream in their catalogue, it’ll be great to see what their future collaboration entails.