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Say you’re a downsized Hollywood studio that recently laid off almost all your employees. Well, if you’re New Line you throw the annual summer staff party for those remaining few. Ex-New Liners are emailing me that the pool party on Thursday at Skybar will cost $35,000 and “all 48 employees will be there to swim in the blood of the 550 employees who were massacred.” 
(Hey, they have a right to be bitter because their severance was less than they were told it would be.) I’m assured it was an ”agonizing” decision by Toby Emmerich and Richard Brenner whether to hold the fete this year. In the old days, New Line co-founder Bob Shaye was famous for these fancy parties held in NY and in LA at summer and Christmas in swanky settings like Malibu beach houses with all-you-can-eat steak and lobsters.
“Even in the worst years New Line always had that party,” a studio insider tells me. ”Senior management didn’t want to be disrespectful of the circumstances. We’re still mourning the hurt and difficulties of so many of our former colleagues. But Toby felt like the summer party is part of New Line’s DNA and to change that is a mistake.” So the studio decided to lower the party’s budget, telling me that the price tag is only “one third” of what the laid-off employees claim. New Line senior management also thinks the studio’s got something to celebrate because of the recent grosses on Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (a Mandate film), 
Sex And The City, and Journey To The Center Of The Earth 3D (a Walden film). “These three summer movies made this the highest grossing summer in New Line history, including 2005′s Wedding Crashers,” the studio source claims, forgetting to acknowledge that those laid-off employees contributed, too. ”But a lot of it was due to Warner Bros which reinvented the campaigns with new one sheets and TV spots and trailers and outdoor. Journey was promoed with every single print of Wall-E‘s opening weekend. A cynical person could have said that Warner didn’t have to do that because it had nothing at stake. But Warner Bros treated those movies like they were their own.”
Uh, nothing at stake? How about all long-suffering Time Warner shareholders?
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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You can just contact the Skybar and ask how much it costs to rent the place. $35 000 sounds right to me…
I love how Toby takes credit for a Walden film, a Mandate film and an HBO film.
Douche
any excuse to excessively drink on the company’s dime, so glad part of the old NL spirit is still alive, even if that dime is sponsored by the blood, sweat and tears of the 550 who were let go.
Why the hate? They should party – they survived the great purge. $ 35k isn’t that much money, really, and they said they always have their party through thick and thin.
Those 550 folks can get new jobs and attend parties their new employers host. Until then, party on New Line! You have nothing to be ashamed of!
beat them down for making hits
beat them down for being ahead of the curve
beat them down for surviving
yep, bravo nikki!
They were kind enough to enough the New Line folks that are now WB employees…aahhhhh isnt Toby nice?
Eh, whatever. I’ll never begrudge any employees enjoying the company’s dime. They all know they could be gone themselves next so why not take what benefits they can from Newline.
just when i thought the tw stockholders couldn’t get slapped in the face any harder. i dumped my stock today. maybe bewkes will finally get the message tho i doubt it.
If I recall, both HBO and Warners passed on doing the Sex and the City movie, so New Line should take credit for it. They were the ones who wanted to do it.
Just a correction. Sex and the City was not a HBO film! NL produced that film entirely, not HBO. Everyone at NL (both current and former employees) worked very hard on SATC and should be proud of it.
H&K was produced by Mandate and distributed by NL.
Journey was produced by Walden and distributed by NL.
Just wanted to set the record straight.
Nikki’s personal crusade against Toby Emmerich is hilarious. We get it. You don’t like him.
Unbefuckinglievable. Really, Brener and Emmerich are two of the scummiest people in town. Good, talented people get laid off and these dolts draw a paycheck? They are going to take credit for those movies when WB nursed them? “Genius” Brener doesn’t take credit for TENIOUS D, does he? Does Toby still write classics like THE LAST MIMZY? Karma is just stocking it up for these clowns. When their contracts are finally up, where will they go?
Actually, I bet there will be some Warnes folks in attendance at the Toby frat party. Besides, NL only exists b/c it makes Robinov look better by contrast. For those who think Toby isn’t the perfect man for the job…well he most certainly is!
A guy who doesn’t like movies (albeit horror or comedy films) and a guy who hates being on a film set is the exact type of guy I’d want to run a little weak division if I had Robinov’s job. He’s a non-threat and so is everybody else who works there. All the intelligent ones left before the demise or got scooped up in the aftermath.
Hey ExNLer,
NL didn’t produce SATC…the actual filmmakers did..i.e. the ones who made the actual show a success. It wasn’t some sort of magic from the execs at New Line. The best thing that New Line could’ve done with SATC is leave their hands off it since Toby lacks any creative bone in his body and the other disciples are just his yes men who wouldn’t know how to produce a film w/ out the platform of a studio behind them if it had instructions to go with it.
Do you really think they had anything to do w/ it whatsoever? Still drinking the kool-aid I take it? The
Thank you Nikki for posting this. As an ex-Newliner who is looking for work and realizing my health insurance runs out in 4 months, I guess I can’t share the live and let live attitude of the other posters. Its in poor taste to have a summer party, and at SkyBar no less…its like they are happy to have dumped so many so they can upgrade their party venue. It reminds me of the ridiculous champagne toast everyone was forced into after the decision was made to let us go…everyone was told to toast the return of Bob to the LA office post NY/Bewkes conversation.(‘Cause once you learn you will be laid off in a matter of months nothing you want to do more than toast your billionaire boss) I went hoping that the sight of the hundreds who now faced uncertain futures would mean something and maybe he might say or do something to assuage the fears so many held. I walked out when it became a hug fest amongst those who probably already knew they were safe. Always remember what goes around comes around.
The New Line zombie just keeps stumbling along. I still don’t believe for one single moment that WB will really give up 5/6 films a year on their slate to make way for whatever New Line will be coughing into existance.
Alan Horn recently said that shareholders didn’t care what label within Warners movies came from, just that they are profitable.
I laughed into my Golden Grahams when I read that. As I said before, this whole New Line slate is exactly the same as Mark Canton’s slate when he left Sony.
He was fired only to see his slate of summer movies like Men In Black (IIRC), Air Force One and My Best Friend’s Wedding become huge hits.
Mr Emmerich is going to be held to impossibly high standards over the next year or two. The Hobbit is a given but won’t count in his favour at all, providing of course that WB let him ‘have it’.
Mark my words. Sooner or later New Line will consist of nothing more than Toby Emmerich with a couple of stoner interns in a porta cabin on the Warner lot making nothing but Final Destination and distributing Harold & Kumar movies. While WB takes all their ‘plum projects’ for themselves.
How’s the taste of Jeff Bewkes’ ass been lately, Warner Borg? Did the Golden Grahams cover the musky flavor?
I will say, in NL’s defense, that Warner did precious little with New Line’s three summer hits– these marketing and ad campaigns were put into play MUCH earlier than what was quoted above. The three movies would have been hits no matter what, and JOURNEY was only hamstrung by the fact that the big 3D rollout didn’t happen because of lack of 3D-capable theaters.
I don’t have a problem with NL having a party, but Skybar? Really? Jeez.
New Line will be dead in two years anyways. Karma is a beyotch. Every new underlings contracts were set with a clause stating that their severance payment is set to be X amount at the end of 2009. So let them all have their last dieing gasps.
Hm, take out 35 employees for a nice dinner with drinks, easily for $200 each or less, that would be $7,000.
Hey guys just got back from the party and boy did I see a bunch of kiss asses! Party was not the same, bunch of Hollywood fake asses. I’m glad I leave in December!!!
…while the rest of the country wonders why the hell a company in trouble is throwing a $35,000 pool party.
Severance pay? What’s that?
Couldn’t have been as good as last year’s part at The Roosevelt pool. That was so awesome. I got drunk…and then I was drunk…so I kept drinking, and I kept getting more drunk. It was cool.
I was there yesterday (albeit briefly). If this cost $35k, someone is pulling a Scrooge McDuck and rolling around on a bedful of cash. It was very small and intimate and the atmosphere, surprisingly enough, was respectful of those who weren’t there and the events of the past 12 months.