Warner Brothers Closes Indie Divisions
In a blow to film lovers everywhere it’s been announced that the two Indie Film divisions of Warner Brothers, Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse, are closing.
These divisions haven’t been as successful as their industry counterparts; Fox Searchlight and Focus Features – the Indie divisions of Fox & Universal Pictures. There has been recent success however with Picturehouse bringing films such as “Pan’s Labyrinth” to the screen and Warner Independent’s “March of the Penguins.”
Warner Brothers wasn’t ahead of the curve on this one, with Warner Independent not up and running till 2003. By then every other major studio had their independent division in place.
Pull out your corporate family tree chart to follow this next part. Warner Brothers is owned by Time Warner and back in February Warner Brothers merged with New Line Cinema. No doubt the big boys at Time Warner just figure they can turn out films under the Warner Brothers marquee and save money eliminating any duplication of staff.
Read the LA Times article here.
Fallon Reported to be New Host of NBC’s “Late Night”
The Associated Press is reporting that today NBC will announce Jimmy Fallon will be the new host of “Late Night” when Conan O’Brien leaves.
O’Brien is scheduled to take over for Jay Leno in 2009 leaving a clear path for the former “Saturday Night Live” star to try his hosting talent.
Read the AP story here.
Cablevision Still Spending Money
Last week Cablevision made a deal to buy The Sundance Channel for $496 million in stock & cash. Today it looks like Cablevision will deal out $650 million for the Tribune Company’s Newsday.
Newsday is the 11th largest newspaper in the country and one of the many assets of the Tribune Company that Sam Zell plans to sell since he took over the company.
Read the New York Times story here.
