Embattled DC Films head Walter Hamada has finally gotten the axe

After years of being compared, unfavorably, to Marvel’s MCU mastermind Kevin Feige on basically every front, DC Films head Walter Hamada has finally pulled off something that Feige hasn’t: Getting the boot, as Deadline reports that the embattled executive has finally been pushed out the door by new CEO David Zaslav.

This is not, precisely, a surprise: Zaslav apparently came into the job as the new boss of Warner Bros. Discovery with an eye on firing Hamada, seeking to replace him with, well, “a Kevin Feige type.” (The company’s inability to find someone with Feige’s rare combination of long-term planning skills, passion for the material, and the ability to keep a massive roster of talent happy has, of course, already turned into its own comedy of errors for the company.) Hamada—who inherited both the job, and the wreckage of Warner’s efforts to build up its own franchise of superhero films centered on 2017's Justice League, from Jon Berg and Geoff Johns in 2018—apparently already packed up his office some time ago, and hasn’t been involved in creative decisions at the company of late.

The irony is that Hamada has actually overseen what’s probably been DC Films’ most successful era: The studio’s two highest earners, Aquaman and Joker, both arrived on his watch, and this week’s Black Adam is expected to bring in a hefty box office return. It’s debatable how much of that can be attributed to Hamada, but it’s hard to deny that DC’s strategy over the last five years, of focusing in on smaller standalone films, instead of trying to build out a Marvel-style cinematic universe, has paid off more than once. (Even as behind-the-scenes issues, including the ongoing legal and PR situation with Flash star Ezra Miller, and accusations of unfair and duplicitous behavior against him from Justice League’s Ray Fisher, have continued to dog Hamada’s tenure.)

No concrete word yet on which poor sap is likely to replace Hamada in the job.