Comments on: Yes, Emmerich Will Run "New" New Line: But The Real Question Is Why?

By: Iron Flatline

Iron Flatline — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:03:31 +0000

LOL, so much vitriol. I assume by the eloquence that many of you are writers. Hmm…. mad, disappointed writers, what a surprise. So let me ask you - the projects that NL turned down… anyone else buy them? Or are the other studios equally clueless?

If someone is asking you to pitch the dog, wouldn’t the dignified thing be to leave?

By: got out of nlc just in time - sorry friends!

got out of nlc just in time - sorry friends! — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:13:09 +0000

Seriously, how can this really go on - Bewkes makes almost $20M a year and as he closes a company can’t figure out who’s to blame! And it was brought up to him at the town hall that he should take a poll of who the employees really wanted to be their leader? He obviously doesn’t listen. And just for your info - that ‘low level employee on the totem pole’ who spoke up at the town hall will not only work in this town but, will hopefully kick Toby to the ground one of these days, because we all know - once WB figures out what a shame Toby is, he’ll be knocking on every door he can find and the only one who will be opening them is Noah.

By: gotoutjustintime

gotoutjustintime — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:00:30 +0000

As a former New Liner I agree that Toby should NOT have received this position. When I saw it in Variety I screamed at the magazine- I can’t believe this jackass was given this kind of responsibility…
I have way too much to say about his incompetence, Brenner should have been offered the position- in short…WHAT A HUGE MISTAKE!

By: Was a Nl'er

Was a Nl'er — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:54:20 +0000

Many executives had just re signed their contracts some with three years, they KNEW this was coming because everyone knew that Shayes and Lynn’s contracts were up in 2008 with TW. These executives did a bag job with each other to get contracts and were just protecting themselves. When HR and Bewkes and his goons were presented with all these contracts they probably had a shit fit and had to figure out a strategy, so they put the free wheelin stoner in charge, what an embarrassment that would be to those high fulutin execs reporting to Shayes sidekick. It’s the fastest way to marginalize and embarrass these executives into leaving, anyone who wanted to hold Bewkes feet to the fire with their bogus but probably airtight contracts, would have to report to TOBY, who in their right mind would want to do that?
Now they’ll get the money, but they’ll be gone and not be a constant additional expense to monitor. Toby they can kick around, and when he wakes up he might actually figure out that as a puppet he’s not going to do his CAREER any good there.

By: dram eldogar

dram eldogar — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 03:46:57 +0000

This whole thing is pathetic. A truly sorry end to a formerly awesome movie co. Toby is just being put in charge as a puppet to steer the ship into port to be decommissioned. He obviously sold his soul to Beelzebub or Bewkes (or are they one and the same? have they ever been photographed together???) to get the gig, and if it’s true he manipulated things to help push Bob Shaye out he deserves to rot in development hell.

As for the Chaya “gathering of the elite” somebody mentioned here…it was nothing of the sort. Bob hosted cocktails for some folks and he picked up the tab, not New Line. I think he was still in shock and not up for a bigol’ blowout New Line-style bash, otherwise he would have had one. Bob’s never been one to deny anyone a cocktail.

There were all kinds of New Liners present - from little “nobodies” to presidents. There were people inadvertantly not invited who thought they should’ve been - like me, just another New Liner. So I did what anyone could’ve - I crashed it. I was welcomed and had a good time. Thanks, Bob.

By: failing upwards

failing upwards — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 23:35:39 +0000

Report in L.A. Times this morning that Jeff Bewkes “earned” $19.6 million last year (that’s a 5% increase in a year the stock fell 24%). Good payday for a guy willing to destroy an entire division of his company to save $50 million. That makes sense. There is no accountability at the corporate level. I’m one of those leaving New Line soon with ZERO value in TW stock options, thank you. It was Bob who said last Christmas about NL: “this is not an institution”. On a bigger level, neither is Time Warner, a company blundering at just about every level. I hope the Bewkes / Emmerich butt-buddy fest brings down the whole company. Of course you’ll say I’m just bitter, but is anybody not embarrassed to work here anyway?

By: nlinsider

nlinsider — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 05:12:58 +0000

As an insider that’s considered low on NL totem pole, it’s the right thing to do and speak out. One must wonder why Toby’s being rewarded by WB for countless acts of corruption. Yes, we all recall the “n” word incident, but he did it twice! Unreal. How about the infamous NL culture toward women which is driven by Toby? Is that how WB and TW wants to represent itself? I mean, everyone knows the guy did give his brother a producing deal, but does everyone know that it was the first producing deal Toby handed out?

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if it’s technically okay to pay yourself to write scripts when you’re the president of production? Isn’t that an obvious conflict of interest? At this point, there should be some sort of revolt when a guy at the top of the ladder is so corrupt and able to get away with it when all other NLers are going to suffer for this corruption and lose their jobs as a result!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:39:06 +0000

Gotta wonder if TW even took the time to look at the box office or lack thereof of all the movies under Toby’s time at NL…subtract the obvious films that weren’t his at all (i.e. LOTR, RUSH HOUR) and see how much money the studio actually lost thanks to him (oh wait does’t he claim he had no choice in answering to Bob? Well, that’s as likely as Toby’s prediction that HAIRSPRAY was going to do $200mm domestic! Quite ironic that now he’s in charge of low budget comedies and horror movies considering he managed to tank the only Will Ferrell movie in modern history by letting “auteur” Kent Alterman “direct” and the guy thinks the horror genre is a trend! Hence, the exact reason why NL lost that entire market to Lionsgate and Rogue over his leadership.

Gotta wonder if Toby promised his new bosses access to some Girls Gone Wild events with him and Joe Francis or maybe an intern or two…

That’s all worthy of a promotion!

Let’s hope Carl Icahn is building a case to take down TW on his second try.

By: Bear the Dog's Owner Sucks Balls!

Bear the Dog's Owner Sucks Balls! — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:12:02 +0000

Toby’s dog Bear does more work than Toby. Good job boy…good boy!

By: glad to be gone

glad to be gone — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:25:47 +0000

Listen, as long as NL continues to hire fools like Mike Disco and Charlie Emde to make and market films, they will continue to be the joke of the industry. Word has it that these 2 actually believe JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is based on a true story. And they are just the tip of the no-talent iceberg. Here’s a question I’ve always had…just what does Rolf do anyway besides make racist and sexist comments to everyone? At least it looks like his sorry ass is finally out the door. It sucks that so many fine people are losing their jobs just because of the few truly inept souls that are doing their finest to fail.

By: Hubris and Karma

Hubris and Karma — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:06:39 +0000

Nikki Finke hit the nail on the head by saying that New Line was brought down by “hubris and karma.” As a former longtime New Liner, I’m disheartened by what’s happened but even more disgusted by what’s about to happen. Haven’t the poor employees of NL suffered enough? Putting Toby in charge of that dysfunctional mess is akin to allowing lunatics to run the asylum. Bewkes and TW are either in complete denial, completely ignorant or the worst case scenario - completely indifferent to what has happened and what will continue to happen at NL.

If that’s the case then TW should just stop all pretense of keeping the New Line brand name alive and fold up shop now. Leave NL employees with a shred of dignity and give the company some semblance of respect for their notable contribution to film history and the industry. Please leave New Liners with a legacy they can be proud of instead of forcing them to helplessly stand by and watch as their beloved company is slowly run into the ground…yet again…by the SAME regime of ineptitude that put them in these dire circumstances in the first place. Stop adding insult to injury!

There’s plenty of blame to go around for this ginormous failure, but those in “leadership” roles at New Line really should be ashamed of themselves. Shame on them for their years of excess and greed. (Did any employees besides executive committee members actually benefit from the Lord of the Rings bounty?). Shame on them for their petty in-house fighting and machinations which created an environment that produced mostly nothing but failure these past few years. And last but not least, shame on them for their myopic view on how to run an organization and their general indifference to the plight of the masses.

It’s appalling but not surprising to hear that New Line’s elite recently had yet another private and exclusive gathering at Chaya to celebrate (I’m not exactly sure why or what?!)…while the vast majority of New Liners are focused on dealing with such tedious matters as finding new jobs or surviving on their lower-than-promised severance packages until they do find new jobs.

Oh, by the way…where’s the gathering to “celebrate” their accomplishments?

Hubris and Karma, indeed.

By: tw lifer

tw lifer — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:36:35 +0000

Oh, Bewkes noticed — that Emmerich has no control over his staff and their negative comments …thus making the parent co. look bad. That’s his takeaway from the town hall meeting.

By: Town hall witness

Town hall witness — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:15:19 +0000

I was at that meeting too. If everybody who agreed with that “won’t work in this town again” assistant actually spoke up as well, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. I know I was afraid. Heaven knows there were a lot of people who were upset that he was being promoted. Maybe nobody at WB or Time Warner knew the real story and we blew it by not saying anything except now, here. Too late. Game over.

By: louvenia

louvenia — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:23:50 +0000

The seat-holders at New Line and HBO are there because not one of them has ever had an original or pro-active thought in his life, and TW likes it that way. The parent co.’s runners will spend a brief time watching them, reading files and learning (yet again) how television and feature motion picture producton and distribution work, then replace these three with Harvard/Stanford MBA’s and pretend they’ve discovered a new business.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:19:55 +0000

The bottom line: this is is a classic case of corporate America using someone (poor Toby’s so delusional he doesn’t even know he’s being used) to make the transition as easy as possible. Soon, Toby will be a pariah in this business and vanish into nonexistence just like before he joined New Line. The only reason he ever worked at NL or even in this biz was because his parents were art dealers and Bob bought from them. Not that nepotism doesn’t exist all the time in the biz, but Toby should’ve been happy with just having a job in general, but the guy had to then give his own actor brother a production deal and his wife’s best-friend a senior development exec job without being able to legitimize it (amongst many other examples). Then again, Toby’s not such a legit guy in general….

Anyone recall the time Toby used the “N” word in front of a black producer and director or when Toby paraded a female intern at Chaya for his “legit” pal Joe Francis.

Sure, Toby will take credit for all the successful films at NL, but everyone knows that he has zero to do with any of them. He hates horror movies, but claims credit for FvsJ which we all know was a former NL exec’s film, he claims credit for LOTR which we all was another current NL exec’s film. Interesting that he’ll never claim credit for any of the countless movies that tanked under his watch. I can just imagine that guy sitting in a room with Warners brass…I’m sure he just threw Bob and Michael under the bus to the Warner guys. Just too bad this all had to happen and so many people will lose their jobs because of one guy sinking an entire ship. Shame on Toby. Hope he can sleep at night.