From “The Lego Batman Movie” to just…Batman?
While veteran producer Dan Lin is in contention for the top job overseeing DC’s film and TV adaptations for Warner Bros. Discovery, Variety has confirmed that no offer has been made to Lin, and several hurdles stand in the way of any deal moving forward.
The biggest hurdle is Lin’s production company, Rideback, which has ties to several other studios, including a first-look deal from January 2021 with Universal Pictures, and development on several features for Disney, including a live-action version of “Lilo & Stitch.” Were Lin to decamp to Warner Bros. Discovery to run DC, his involvement with those productions would need to be sorted, if not severed outright.
Beyond his business entanglements, Lin is a strong candidate for the role, having shepherded the animated “Lego” movies for Warner Bros. starting with 2014’s “The Lego Movie.” In an interview on the Ankler podcast earlier this month, Lin spoke about a moment in 2008 when he almost had a job “overseeing the entire DC franchise” due to his work producing a “Justice League” movie for director George Miller. That film fell apart, and Lin moved on to a wildly successful career as a producer, including the two “Sherlock Holmes” films with Robert Downey Jr. and the two adaptations of Stephen King’s “It” with director Andy Muschietti — the director on DC feature film “The Flash,” which is still set to open in theaters in June 2023, despite ongoing controversy around its star, Ezra Miller. Overall, Lin’s films have grossed more than $5 billion worldwide.
The question of who will oversee DC has been a major topic of conversation in the industry since Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav made it clear he wanted to emulate the structure created by Marvel Studios, which has chief creative officer Kevin Feige overseeing all film and TV production in a single narrative universe. Whoever takes the DC job will have their hands full, between several ongoing DC projects in film and TV that are decidedly not interrelated — including Todd Phillips’ sequel to “Joker,” Matt Reeves’ Penguin TV series and the second season of James Gunn’s “Peacemaker” — as well as Zaslav’s controversial decision in early August to cancel the release of the $90 million HBO Max feature “Batgirl.”
From Variety US