Film Producer Michael De Luca, known recently for the series American Rust, is in talks to join the new regime at Warner Bros. Discovery and it could mean big things for DC’s film division.
Variety reported in May that De Luca and his partner Pamela Abdy could be in line for positions at WBD should negotiations go well. The publication was discreet about the details but did note the deal is related to “access to DC Entertainment in some capacity.”
Geekosity’s Mikey Sutton is encouraged by this news, seeing it as a sign De Luca will be put in charge of DC Films since he has comic book knowledge, which is important to CEO David Zaslav, and an affinity for Frank Miller like the one Zack Snyder displayed in Batman v Superman.
Sutton wrote, “De Luca is a massive comic-book fan. Obviously, Zaslav seeks someone with comics knowledge and not just financial smarts. Specifically, De Luca loves writer/artist Frank Miller like Snyder.”
Sutton adds, “Sources reveal De Luca admires Snyder and wants to work with him.” He also emphasized that De Luca nearly dipped his toes into the DCEU with Suicide Squad 2 when it was meant to be a direct sequel to David Ayer’s butchered summer blockbuster. Obviously, it wasn’t to be and WB went in a new direction with James Gunn.
De Luca and Abdy’s arrival could be key for the revival of the Snyderverse. Sutton is a notoriously big believer that Snyder’s DCEU, and everything concerning it, is coming back and that Zaslav is keen on making that happen.
Zaslav is also trying to get rid of current DC Films Pres. Walter Hamada, according to a previous scoop, and aiming to restructure DC, creatively as well as bureaucratically, into a studio that imitates the Marvel model.
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If the duo of De Luca and Abdy are to become the new brain trust of a new DC Studios age, it will be months until we find out as it is expected to take that long for the deal to close. They are leaving their present roles at MGM this summer.
Like Hamada, De Luca has a history at New Line Cinema as the president of production. He held the same position at Dreamworks and has three Oscars to his name.
Among his credits as a producer are Captain Phillips, the Fifty Shades trilogy, Dracula Untold, and the completion of John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy, In the Mouth of Madness.
His forays into comic book movies are Nicolas Cage’s turns as Ghost Rider and Priest, the dystopian thriller about a vampire hunter played by Paul Bettany that is loosely based on a Korean manga.
Make of that track record what you will.