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Last week Warner Brothers anounced the final curtains on the prolific run of NEW LINE CINEMA. It marks an end of an era. Started in his appartment in New York by Bob Shaye 40 years back. Bob hit the bullseye with the distribution of the hilarious 1936 anti-cannabis film REEFER MADNESS. Over the years it became one of the biggest American studios. The list of films is very impressive -
Boogie Nights, Austin Power, Lord of the Rings, The Mask, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Blade, The Player, Glenngery Glen Ross, American History X. And many more.
Its also a studio known to have supported directors like PT Anderson, Altman, Wes Craven over the years.

According to Variety -

Time Warner said New Line would continue to have development, marketing, business affairs and some distribution operations but those will be cut severely. And New Line films will go out through Warner Bros. pipes after this weekend’s “Semi-Pro.”

This news comes just a week after the news that Tolkien’s estate has sued New Line over the profits from the franchise. I guess in Hollywood one bad news follows another. Last few years have been rough on NEW LINE. Peter Jackson & Bob have been going at each other for sometime.

Lot of people are gonna lose their jobs this week.

In a conference call with media analysts this month, Bewkes announced plans to immediately eliminate 100 jobs at Time Warner’s corporate headquarters, split AOL into two parts, possibly reduce its 84% ownership of Time Warner Cable and target New Line for “near-term cost cuts.”
That was an understatement. As a part of Warner Bros., New Line’s staff of 600 will be vastly scaled back and the company will no longer greenlight, market or distribute its own movies. Although New Line executives will continue to oversee the development and production of its own films, final say on all matters rests with Warner Bros. President Alan Horn. New Line will make only half the 12 to 14 pictures a year it did previously, which will now be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros.

This right after the Writer’s strike. Among all these out of work suits, we’ll see a lot of new start-ups & some of them will go on to be big players in a decade or so.

THANK YOU NEW LINE.

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