The Fate of New Line

[Cambrian]

Originally Posted by Marcusarilius

Cool. Looking forward to LOTRs in DD only.

You said it, man. Newline has been really good with their releases in terms of quality. Just look at Pan's with DTS-HD MA. If we leave LOTR to Warner, we're going to get Dolby Digital and BD25 disc.

[statikcat]

Sure a lot of those people will get new jobs but what is really sad is a lot of the long time employees that were involved New Line possibly even before Warner stepped in. In the past 5 years the company I work for has been bought by two different companies so I totally sympathize with these guys. Anyone who has been through this kind of thing knows it is very stressful. Not only do you possibly have weeks after the announcement not really knowing what is going on with your job.. but there is usually an internal rumor mill about it weeks or months before it actually happens.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by radagast

In this case, both CEOs of New Line are "not having their contracts renewed" which is a nice way of saying they're fired.

Yeah, imagine all those other people having to lose their jobs just because Warner wanted to kick Bob Shaye out into the alley for picking fights with LOTR...

But no, that would be bad press, so they have to make a big long elaborate alibi about kicking him out because of "Last Mimzy" and "Golden Compass"...

[doctorD]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

although it sucks that 75% will have to get new jobs... I am far more concerned about the other deals going on.
Will the Hobbit be made? Will Peter Jackson still be in charge of it? Will the Tolkien estate let WB take charge of this? Will New Line still put their name on things or will it all become WB? Will WB take over video production for BD of New Line titles? If so, will WB upgrade their BD quality, specifically their sound?
More importantly, does WB listen to people when we tell them we want better sound???

If they can let the Warchocski's (sp?) have free rain on their movies then you can bet someone like Peter Jackson (and Del Toro, if he is still set to direct) should have no problem.

[doctorD]

New Lines PQ and SQ are far superior to WB's. Hopefully, WB will be either retaining those in the know for the Hi Def encodes or have decided to use the factories that New Line used for their Blu ray encodes going forward once their releases for HD DVD have been fulfilled!

[Grubert]

New Line Officially Closed

New Line Home Entertainment has officially shut down, and its remaining releases for the year will be brought to DVD by Warner Home Video. The division shut down with a Father’s Day promotion involving such catalog titles as The Mask, Rush Hour and the “Austin Powers” trilogy. Its last new release was Be Kind, Rewind, the Jack Black comedy that grossed an unimpressive $11.2 million at the box office. Ironically, the film is about a buffoonish video store clerk who accidentally erases the store’s stockpile of ancient VHS cassettes.