Paramount Pictures has entered an exclusive, multi-year production deal with Walter Hamada, the studio announced Tuesday.
Under the deal, effective, Jan. 1, 2023, Hamada will spearhead building out the studio’s mainstream horror genre pod, with the goal of releasing several, low- to mid-budget films per year across theatrical and streaming.
“With his track record for groundbreaking success, Walter is the ideal partner and visionary to build out our mainstream horror genre franchise business,” Paramount Pictures President and CEO Brian Robbins said in a statement. “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.”
“I am thrilled to collaborate with Paramount Pictures with the singular goal of creating exceptional movies in the horror genre,” Hamada added. “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.”
Most recently, Hamada served as President, DC-Based Film Production, at Warner Bros. Pictures, where he oversaw the studio’s slate of films based on superheroes and supervillains, including two of DC’s biggest blockbusters to date: “Aquaman,” and the multi-Academy Award-winning “Joker“, which both surpassed $1B at the global box office. Hamada also shepherded the DC titles “The Batman,” “Black Adam,” “The Suicide Squad,” “Wonder Woman 1984” and “Shazam!,” as well as the studio’s upcoming DC-based releases “The Flash,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” and “Shazam: Fury of the Gods.”
Prior to that, he served as Executive Vice President, Production at New Line Cinema, where he launched the highest-grossing horror franchise of all time with “The Conjuring,” and the adaptation of Stephen King’s iconic horror novel “IT,” which became a global phenomenon and the highest grossing horror film in history with more than $704 million in global box office receipts.
Walter Hamada is represented by attorney Jeff Frankel and Mortimer PR.
