BellaOnline Forums TV and Movies Sci Fi/Fantasy Movies The Demise of New Line Studio and The Hobbit

Cue the end credits for New Line Cinema.

The little production company that could has merged with Warner Brothers after a devastating string of flops including, �The Last Mimzy�, �Rendition� and �The Number 23�. Time Warner Inc.�s new Chief Executive, Jeffrey Bewkes made his first move to stop the money from hemorrhaging further and announced that New Line would be consolidated immediately.

The largest failure came this past December with �The Golden Compass� which lost the company somewhere in the range of $110 million dollars. The movie had actually performed well overseas, but New Line had sold off the foreign rights to offset their high budget � a practice that Warner says they will not abide by.

"International revenues are becoming more important and it doesn't make sense to give up foreign rights, where a lot of the upside is," Bewkes said.

The planned adaptation of �The Hobbit� will be co-executive produced by Peter Jackson with MGM co-financing and releasing the project internationally.

New Line is still in the midst of a legal battle with the Tolkein trust which is suing the studio for cheating it out at least $150 million dollars.

Well at least the Hobbit will still have Peter Jackson involved, I don't care who pays for it!!

How true,

it's just disappointing to think that one very bad movie (Golden Compass) ruined such a successful production studio especially when you consider they made close to $3 billion with the LOTR franchise.

It also begs the question, "Will the rest of His Dark Materials" be made into films?". I can tell you that if Jackson had been handed that project from the start, we wouldn't be having this conversation!

Well it really does ask how they were running their finances if just one movie like that could take them down completely. Where did all of that other money go?

But again, it's hard to second guess how people spend money. At least the Hobbit is being saved and Peter Jackson is still involved - and apparently most of the cast wants to come back too!

Crud! I had not heard this. I hope we still get two movies out of the hobbit as planned. And Ian Mckellan. If they are going to do it, i can only hope they do it right, with WETA and New Zealand and all the same dedicated artists.

Do you think Ian Holm is too old to do a younger Bilbo?

Also, I would hope they go back to the "shire" they created in LOTR. It was bloody perfect.

Unfortunately they had to completely "undo" the Shire as part of their agreement to use the land. And the first time around, they literally let the Shire "grow" for a full year before using it - so it would look lived in. So those were real plantings and such growing around the houses. They'd have to have another full year preparation to get it to do that again.

But with the originals making 3 billion or whatever, I'm sure that even though it has "new owners" that the studios will gladly pour money into this project, knowing how much they can recoup it ...

Pour it in, is all i can say. do it right! bring back that lovely Shire that made me cry when i saw it in FOTR. it means too much to so many people. At least that is my POV as a die hard Middle Earth Lover.

Here's an article that says it'll be two movies and filming begins next year -

BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

Ok, I quite enjoyed the Golden Compass. Does this mean the other two in the series won't be released?

i haven't seen the golden compass yet. I hope they make all three. I enjoyed the books and would love to see that magic on the screen

Those of us that read the Pullman books were VERY disappointed in the movie. I did write a review for it the day it came out which is hereBellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!