New Line Cinema
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| Company type | Subsidiary of Warner Bros. |
|---|---|
| Industry | Theatrical distribution, marketing, home video |
| Founded | 1967 |
| Founder | Robert Shaye Michael Lynne |
| Headquarters | 888 7th Ave., 19th Fl. New York City 10106 |
Key people | Toby Emmerich (President/COO) |
| Owner | Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner |
| Parent | independent company (1967–93) Turner Broadcasting System (1993–96) Time Warner (1996–present) |
| Website | www.newline.com |
New Line Cinema, often simply known as New Line, is one of the major American film studios. It was founded in 1967 by Bob Shaye as a film distributer, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner Bros. in 2008.
History
One of the company's early successes was its distribution of the 1936 anti-cannabis propaganda film Reefer Madness, which became a cult hit on American college campuses in the early 1970s. The studio has also released many of the films of John Waters (not including Cry-Baby which was released by Universal Pictures and Serial Mom, which was produced by Savoy Pictures). A Nightmare on Elm Street was New Line's first commercially successful series after a devastating financial slump, leading the company to be nicknamed "The House that Freddy Built".
New Line also released many classic foreign-language films, like Stay as you are, Immoral Tales and Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (which became the first New Line film to win an Oscar).[1]
In 1993, New Line Cinema was acquired by Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System, which then merged with Time Warner in 1996. While fellow Turner-owned studios Hanna-Barbera Productions and Castle Rock Entertainment eventually became absorbed into Warner Bros., New Line was kept as its own entity until February 28, 2008 when Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes announced that New Line would shut down as a separately operated studio.
Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne said that they would step down with a letter to their employees. They promised, however, along with Time Warner and Jeffery Bewkes that the company would continue to operate its financing, producing, marketing and distributing operations of its own films with the New Line logo, but would do so now as a part of Warner Bros. and be a smaller studio, releasing a smaller number of films than in past years.[2]
As to the company's future, according to Warner Bros. president Alan Horn, "There's no budget number required. They'll be doing about six per year, though the number may go from four to seven; it's not going to be 10." As to content, "New Line will not just be doing genre [...] There's no mandate to make a particular kind of movie."[3]
In 2007, New Line Cinema and Castle Rock Entertainment collaborated on Fracture, their first joint venture since the mid-1990s before both companies were bought by Turner.
In the coming years, New Line will release several films based on properties originated at WB. These include a remake of the 1958 musical film Damn Yankees[4], a film with George Lopez playing Looney Tunes character Speedy Gonzales[5], and another film in the National Lampoon's Vacation series[6].
Divisions of New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema operated several divisions, including theatrical distribution, marketing, home video, and was a partner in new (and relatively short-lived) distribution company called Picturehouse.
Specializing in independent film, Picturehouse was formed by Bob Berney (who left distributor Newmarket Films), New Line (who folded their division Fine Line into this), and HBO Films (a division of HBO and subsidiary of Time Warner), who was interested in getting into the theatrical movie business.
On May 8, 2008 it was announced that Picturehouse would shut down in the fall.[7]
Collaborations with other major studios
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With becoming a WB division, New Line is starting to make more traditional co-productions with other major studios (where one studio has North American rights, the other international rights).
The first such film was the reboot of Friday the 13th. It is co-produced with Paramount Pictures, the other major distributor of that franchise's films. The US distribution rights are with Warner Bros., while Paramount Pictures will handle international rights (distributing through either Universal Studios or United International Pictures in some countries, while Paramount Pictures distributes directly in others). This essentially mirrors the distribution setup for the original film, where Paramount Pictures had US rights, and Warner Bros. had international rights.
Later on down the road will be the upcoming film version of The Hobbit. This film is being co-produced with NLC's TV distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, as a result of various rights issues. Again, New Line Cinema (Warner Bros.) holds the US rights, while the co-producing studio (in this case, MGM through 20th Century Fox) has international rights.
Distribution
International distribution
Outside the U.S., New Line does not distribute its own films. Rather, it contracts other studios such as Alliance in Canada, Entertainment Film Distributors (1990–2010) in the UK, Warner Bros. in German-speaking areas, Singapore, Philippines, Poland, and the Czech Republic, Village Roadshow Pictures in Australia and New Zealand, Playarte in Brazil, Cine Colombia in Colombia, Metropolitan Filmexport in France and AB Svensk Filmindustri (also known as SF-Film) in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden to distribute its product overseas.
International distribution of New Line films will revert to Warner Bros. after third-party distribution contracts expire (no timeframe has been set for this yet). The first expiration will be Village Roadshow as overall Australian distributor, they will remain as theatrical distributor (as they have theatrical rights to WB films there), but WB will handle DVD releases.
Home video distribution
In comparison with other independent motion picture studios
Unlike other independent studios such as Orion Pictures, Carolco Pictures, or Cannon Films, New Line Cinema grew and prospered to become one of Hollywood's major film studios, culminating in the hit Lord of the Rings film trilogy that brought commercial success to the studio.
Prior to this, New Line was responsible for genre films and cult classics such as Dark City, The Mask, the Austin Powers film trilogy, the fantasy Pleasantville, the Nightmare on Elm Street series, the film Friday (and its two sequels Next Friday and Friday After Next) , the films of John Waters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films, and the highly successful movie adaptation of Mortal Kombat (as well as its ill-fated sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation).
Films
See also
References
- ^ http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117909431.html?categoryid=1757&cs=1
- ^ http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/02/28/its-official-new-line-cinema-is-dead/
- ^ http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117988209.html?categoryid=1019&cs=1
- ^ Damn Yankees! (2010) Remake Coming
- ^ http://www.heatvisionblog.com/2010/02/speedy-gonzales-george-lopez-film-new-line-jerry-weintraub.html
- ^ Siegel, Tatiana (February 10, 2010). "New Line ready for another 'Vacation'; Studio updating franchise family film saga". Daily Variety. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
- ^ http://www.variety.com/VR1117985299.html
External links
- Official website
- Template:Imdb company
- New Line 40th Anniversary interview with Michael Lynne and Robert Shaye on Charlie Rose
Template:New Line
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