Dan Lin, a producer best known for his work on Sherlock Holmes and The Lego Batman Movie, is reportedly in negotiations to lead DC’s film and TV businesses. It has long been rumoured that the new management at Warner Bros. Discovery was looking to appoint a new head of DC, who would oversee the studio’s DC Extended Universe film series in a manner much to what Kevin Feige has done with Disney and Marvel Studios’ Marvel Cinematic Universe. It appears like the investigation is about to come to an end.
As per The Hollywood Reporter:
The Hollywood Reporter claims that producer Dan Lin is in negotiations to replace the current DC leader. Lin would be in charge of the TV and film departments of DC in this position. In place of Warner Bros. Pictures executives Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, HBO/HBO Max president Casey Bloys, and Warner Bros. Television chairwoman Channing Dungey, sources claim that Lin would report directly to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. To put it another way, Lin would have complete authority over DC’s screen projects. Walter Hamada, who is currently president of DC Films, would step down from that position if Lin were to take over DC, according to THR.
Contrary to THR’s claim, Variety claims that although Lin is in the competition to be DC’s “Kevin Feige,” Warner Bros. Discovery has not yet made him a formal offer. Furthermore, “a number of obstacles remain in the way of any agreement proceeding.” The largest obstacle would be Lin’s production business, Rideback, which has connections to other studios and has numerous projects in development at Disney as well as a first-look agreement with Universal. Despite the fact that Warner Bros. allegedly explored other candidates, such as Arrowverse executive producer Greg Berlanti, Variety says that Lin himself is a strong prospect for the top position at DC.
At DC, Warner Bros. Discovery is implementing changes:
As a producer of Warner Bros. movies, Lin is by no means an amateur. Additionally to the DC-themed offshoot The Lego Batman Movie and another spinoff in the form of The Lego Ninjago Movie, he also produced The Lego Movie and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. His live-action Warner Bros. works include It, It Chapter Two, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and many others. The Invention of Lying, Death Note on Netflix, and Disney’s live-action adaptation of Aladdin are just a few of the other movies Lin has created. In the meanwhile, The Departed, Terminator Salvation, and Godzilla vs. Kong are among the movies he executive produced.
The aforementioned Zaslav and his senior management were reportedly “playing with the idea of converting DC into its own distinct content sector” in April of last year, according to Variety. In addition, it appears that Zaslav had previously “vetted applicants” in an effort to find “someone to act as a creative and strategic czar comparable to what Marvel has in Kevin Feige.” Notably, one frequent complaint of Warner Bros. Pictures’ DCEU is that, in contrast to Kevin Feige’s MCU, the franchise has lacked a single creative voice to lead it.
