New Line Cinema

Wholly Owned Subsidiary of AOL Time Warner Inc. Incorporated: 1967 NAIC: 512110 Motion Picture and Video Production; 512120 Motion Picture and Video Distribution; 512220 Integrated Record Production/Distribution New Line Cinema is one of the largest independent producers, acquirers, and distributors of theatrical motion pictures in the world. Founded in 1967, today the studio has a domestic marketing and distribution organization; a home video division; a television production and distribution organization; an international division; and merchandising, music and new media subsidiaries that fully exploit New Line's film properties and franchises. New Line's programming refreshes AOL Time Warner's libraries and provides valuable programming for its cable networks, in particular TNT, TBS and HBO. New Line releases first of three epic Lord of the Rings movies. New Line Cinema, Inc. is a leading producer and distributor of films. The company made its reputation producing horror films and other low-budget niche movies. Its early hits were the Nightmare on Elm Street movies of the 1980s. Later, as a subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting and then as a subsidiary of entertainment conglomerate AOL Time Warner, the company has produced films that rival major studio releases for production and advertising budgets. New Line operates a subsidiary company, Fine Line Features, which produces films for an art house audience. The company has a television arm, New Line Television, and a music division, New Line Music. New Line International Releasing coordinates publicity and marketing for New Line films overseas, where the company does substantial business. New Line Cinema continued distributing films to campuses through the 1970s. Shaye picked films that appealed to a college audience and were somewhat outside the mainstream of popular culture. New Line brought John Waters's bombastic creation Pink Flamingos to campus audiences, along with the horror film Night of the Living Dead. New Line also distributed foreign films that had a limited mainstream audience, such as the 1977 French film Madame Rosa, and the 1978 French-Belgian Get Out Your Handkerchiefs. Both these films won Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film. Yet the film distribution business was up and down for New Line, with Shaye constantly casting about for the next hit. In the early 1980s, Shaye decided to produce films as well as distribute. New Line Cinema went public in 1986, made newly visible by the first two Elm Street movies. Its revenues were $26.5 million that year. The company also branched into television. It produced Freddy's Nightmares with Lorimar Telepictures. The show was hosted by actor Englund, though New Line was careful to monitor how much the Freddy character appeared on the show, so as not to dilute his popularity. The arrangement with Lorimar meant that company took the financial risk, and New Line and Lorimar split the profits from syndication of the series. The company had a huge mass-market hit in 1990 with its release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The movie, based on a comic and television show about four pizza-loving warrior turtles, was a must-see for children worldwide, and it became the highest grossing film ever for an independent studio. New Line's revenue rocketed up to approximately $150 million, and the company began investing in other entertainment ventures. In 1991, New Line bought a 20 percent share in RHI Entertainment Inc., a company that made television miniseries and made-for-TV movies. RHI brought with it a library of films that could be syndicated. New Line wanted a bigger toehold in the fast-growing television movie market, and was also looking to syndicate shows in Europe. Also in 1991, New Line acquired a company called Nelson Entertainment Group. The deal gave New Line home video and foreign rights to a substantial collection of films, some 600 in all. As part of the arrangement, New Line also became a backer of filmmaker Rob Rein