Hollywood exec news generally isn’t interesting, but hold on, this is an exception. If you pay attention to film news centering on executives— and we totally forgive and understand if you don’t —you’ll know that following Amazon‘s acquisition of MGM, the company announced that motion picture group chairman Michael De Luca and president Pam Abdy were leaving. This isn’t a huge surprise, mergers often create consolidation, people lose jobs, and sometimes, execs don’t share the vision of their new overlords. It happens and it’s common.
Why do we care you ask? Well, Variety is reporting De Luca and Pam Abdy are now in talks to take roles of film executives at Warner Bros. Discovery as the company. And? Same question why is that of interest? Well, WBDiscovery is reportedly making DC Comics films a priority and the report mentions De Luca and Abdy could end up having access to DC Entertainment and even launch their own movie label.
OK, and? Well, this is fairly interesting because Del Luca, these days, is especially known as a prestige producer or exec behind either Oscar players or critically-acclaimed arthouse movies. He’s been responsible for an impressive collection of high-quality movies like “Moneyball,” “The Social Network,” “Boogie Nights,” “American History X,” and “Captain Phillips.”
Likewise, Abdy has great taste too and produced a good versatile slate of films like “Garden State,” “47 Ronin,” “Stop-Loss,” and “Queen and Slim.”
It’s unclear if the duo is being eyed for the DCEU “czar” position (aka the equivalent of Kevin Feige). It’s been rumored the company is looking for someone to oversee the DCEU and subsequent projects under that umbrella. But either way, this could be good news for DCEU fans and or the quality and coherence of DCEU if execs like this are involved.
While he is known for all his Oscar players, De Luca is pretty well-rounded and seasoned too, having produced films such as “Reminiscence,” “The Mask,” “Blade,” “Ghost Rider,” Guillermo del Toro‘s “Blade II,” the “Lost In Space” movie reboot, John Carpenter‘s “In The Mouth of Madness,” and “Dark City.” Having Del Luca and Abdy get involved with some of the DC Entertainment projects or developing their own would certainly help with quality control. It doesn’t hurt having folks with a history of making all types of films.
The studio was said to looking to develop more films like the Oscar-winning billion-hit “The Joker” alongside trying to the “Superman” franchise up going again was mentioned as a “priority” for them. De Luca’s current taste feels more in line with something more artful like Matt Reeves‘ “The Batman,” and no doubt, having any superhero movie of that quality is definitely a good thing and step in the right direction for DCEU.