Subsidiary | |
Industry | Motion pictures |
Founded | 1967 |
Founder | Robert Shaye |
Headquarters | 4000 Warner Blvd S Monroe Street, Los Angeles, California, United States |
Products |
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Owner | Time Warner |
Parent | Independent (1967-1994) Turner Entertainment (1994-1996) Warner Bros. (1996-present) |
Website | www |
New Line Cinema is an American film studio that was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as a film distribution company, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of the Turner Broadcasting System in 1994 before Turner merged with Time Warner in 1996, and was later merged with its larger sister studio Warner Bros. Entertainment in 2008. Currently, its films are distributed by Warner Bros.
New Line Cinema was established in 1967 by the then 27-year-old Robert Shaye as a film distribution company, supplying foreign and art films for college campuses in the United States. Shaye operated New Line's offices out of his apartment at 14th Street and Second Avenue in New York City. 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. 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). The studio has also released many of the films of John Waters.
In 1976, New Line secured funding to produce its first full-length feature, Stunts (1977), directed by Mark Lester. Although not considered a critical success, the film performed well commercially on the international market and on television. New Line then produced or co-produced three more films in 1981 and 1983; Alone in the Dark, Xtro and Polyester, directed by John Waters. Polyester was one of the first films to introduce a novelty cinema experience named Odorama, where members of the audience were provided with a set of "scratch and sniff" cards to be scratched and sniffed at specific times during the film, which provided an additional sensory connection to the viewed image.