Michael De Luca
Co-Chair and CEO
Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group
Michael De Luca is Co-Chair and CEO of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, encompassing Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, and Warner Bros. Pictures Animation. WBMPG continues to build on its legacy of iconic feature franchises and world-class cinema, working across all genres with both established and emerging talent – in front of and behind the camera – to deliver the industry’s most diverse slate of films for a global audience. De Luca serves as Co-Chair and CEO with Pamela Abdy, sharing oversight of the Studio’s global theatrical production, marketing, and distribution operations.
In addition to his Motion Picture Group responsibilities, De Luca, along with Abdy, has curatorial oversight of WBD’s TCM (Turner Classic Movies) network, in partnership with filmmakers Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese.
Since joining Warner Bros. in 2022, De Luca has overseen hits such as Minecraft, Sinners, Final Destination: Bloodlines, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Dune: Part Two, Wonka, and the record-shattering global phenomenon Barbie.
Recent Warner Bros. Pictures’ box office milestones include Minecraft achieving a record-breaking opening weekend with $163 million at the domestic box office. The film earned nearly $1 billion dollars worldwide, making it the second highest grossing film of 2025; Sinners is the highest-grossing original horror film of all time at the domestic box office with $365 million earned in its theatrical release. The film maintained a 41 consecutive day streak of earning over $1 million in the U.S. box office, a feat that surpasses even Avengers: Endgame; Final Destination: Bloodlines achieved the best opening weekend in the six-film series, surpassing all other installments, and became the highest-grossing film in the 25-year-old Final Destination franchise, surpassing the previous record holder, The Final Destination, within 11 days of release; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice became Tim Burton’s second highest-grossing movie domestically, surpassing his 1989 Batman and is now his fourth highest-grossing worldwide. The film grossed over $450 million globally; and at over $1.4 billion worldwide, the eight-time Academy Award®-nominated Barbie from Greta Gerwig marked the highest grossing opening ever for a female director, earning the biggest preshow box office of the year, the largest advance sales in WB’s history, and the highest grossing film of all time for the 100-year-old studio.
Prior to joining Warner Bros., DeLuca served as MGM’s Motion Picture Group Chairman, overseeing development, production, and post-production for all MGM and Orion films. He oversaw studio hits such as Sarah Polley’s Academy Award® Best Picture-nominated Women Talking which earned Polley the Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay, Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver; Paul Thomas Anderson’s Academy Award® Best Picture-nominated Licorice Pizza, which marked MGM’s first such nomination since Rain Man won in 1988; Creed III, starring and directed by Michael B. Jordan; Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan’s Adam’s Family 2; and Ron Howard’s 13 Lives.
An esteemed and prolific producer with three decades in the film business, De Luca has been nominated three times for an Academy Award® for Best Picture of the Year (for David Fincher's The Social Network, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield, Bennett Miller's Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, and Paul Greengrass’s Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi); and three times for an Emmy Award as producer of the 89th and the 90th Academy Awards®, and Ben Stiller’s award-winning Escape At Dannemora for Showtime. Additionally, he has been nominated four times for a Producers Guild of America Award. De Luca also produced the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, as well as its two sequels – Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, starring Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson, for Universal Pictures. The trilogy was a global phenomenon and a box office sensation that grossed over $1 billion internationally.
Over the course of his career, De Luca has held several key positions in the film industry. At age 27, De Luca served as one of the youngest heads of production in Hollywood history when he was appointed President and COO of New Line Productions, where he helped to launch lucrative franchises including Friday, Blade, Austin Powers, and Rush Hour. During his tenure, he championed such groundbreaking sleeper hits as Se7en, Wag the Dog, Pleasantville, Magnolia, I Am Sam, and Boogie Nights, and helped to launch the directing careers of Jay Roach, Gary Ross, Alan and Albert Hughes, F. Gary Gray, the Farrelly brothers, David Fincher, and Paul Thomas Anderson. From New Line, De Luca went on to serve as DreamWorks’ Head of Production from 2001 to 2004, overseeing the live-action division and the production of such films as Old School and Anchorman, which continued the rise of both Will Ferrell and Todd Phillips.
Beginning in 2004, De Luca launched his own production company, Michael De Luca Productions, which had a development and production agreement with Columbia Pictures that brought the studio three Academy Award® Best Picture nominees – The Social Network, Moneyball and Captain Phillips – as well as mainstream success with such films as Ghost Rider and 21. As an independent producer, De Luca focused on developing provocative specialized films with visionary filmmakers, as well as elevated genre films with franchise potential. Prior to launching a multi-year production deal at Universal Pictures, De Luca served as President of Production for Columbia Pictures, where he revitalized the studio’s slate with commercial fare and notable filmmakers, including the thriller The Shallows, starring Blake Lively and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, and western The Magnificent Seven, starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt and directed by Antoine Fuqua.
