The folks at Fade In Magazine really went full tilt on this amazing interview with former head of production at New Line, Mike Deluca.
The interview was conducted in the summer it seems, months before Deluca and New Line parted ways, so the irony here is hard to ignore. Deluca talks about his youth and his many years with New Line, he speaks about his thoughts on today’s Hollywood scene, and where he thinks it will go. He is equally frank about his success and failures in the movie biz. I think many of you will learn allot about this man by reading this 10 page interview.I’ve spoken with Mike Deluca an several occasions, always via email, yet you still cannot miss the feeling that he’s ‘one of us’. He’s the fanboy who sits in the movie theatre and gets excited by the flashing images he sees on the screen. He’s a man sitting in a place reserved for stuffed suits and power ties, who answers fan emails from time to time, totally off the cuff.I had the chance to wish him all the best when I heard the news about his departure from NL, and even among all the hoopla that surrounded that day, he wrote me back thanking me, this is one suit that will never get stuffed.
Category: Miscellaneous
From: The Vancouver Sun
Tolkien fans are deeply conflicted over the film trilogy headed their way and, writes Trent Ernst, the first trailer did nothing to dim the controversy. [More]
I’ve got a theory that if you are a complete nerd and ignore all fashions, eventually you fall so far behind that you find yourself ahead of the pack – voila, a trendsetter. (That was a ‘voila’ missing the little line over one of the vowels, BTW. Not a miss-spelled viola.) So is this true of being a Tolkien fan, or do we just come to this website to delude ourselves that we’ve got friends?
According to USA Today, Tolkien fandom is hip enough that the official LOTR site features in their Web Guide’s “Hot Sites” list today.
Way to go, Michael 🙂
From: WonderBroad via IMDB
New Line Cinema and Fine Line Features, which remained distinct entities insulated from the Warner Bros. monolith after being acquired by Time Warner in the Turner Broadcasting merger, began downsizing Tuesday as part of an overall retrenchment following the takeover by America Online.
The online magazine Inside reported that New Line alone will be forced to cut 20 percent of its overhead, resulting in deep staff cuts. More than 100 employees of the unit are expected to be pink slipped, the magazine noted, with 18 layoffs coming in the New Line Home Video operation alone. The firings occur even as the New York Daily News was reporting that Mike De Luca, ousted last week as New Line Cinema studio chief, was being offered a $100-million deal to set up a production company at the same studio that fired him. “Who would walk away from that?” an unnamed source remarked in an interview with the newspaper. “It’s one of the most lucrative production deals ever, similar to what Peter Guber got when he left Sony or what Sid Sheinberg got from Universal.”
The NZ Listener chimes in again with a report on the WB and the strong arm tactics the film production company is using against Harry Potter online fans. Two 15 year old webmasters have been sent legally threatening letters from Warners (yes, 15 year old). We can all be thankful that New Line runs a fan friendly production house.
From: MSNBC.com
In this Manhattan movie house, at 10:30 a.m., you can tell who isn’t here to watch Kevin Costner handle the Cuban missile crisis in “Thirteen Days.” You, sir, with the tattoos and the FRODO LIVES! T shirt? Bet you came to see the trailer for “The Lord of the Rings”? Knew it. [More]