Boxoffice-September.1989

DISTRIBUTION PROFILE
New Line's Hard-line Formula
The veteran indie is still standing tall
as its competition withers and dies.
VESTRON
By Tom Matthews
Managing Editor
Cannon Spectrafilm.
Atlantic. New World. Island. Cineplex
Odeon. FilmDallas. They
all shared that middle ground between
pure exploitation distributors and the
majors, turning out a small but widely
varied slate of films which sometimes
courted film critics, and which sometimes
went straight for the lowest common
denominator. They knew that they
were never going to reap the profits of a
"Batman," but by knovdng their audiences
and by carefully moving a select
number of prints through their
regional markets, each of these distributors
had their day in the sun.
And now, each is dead, or has pulled
back operations to the extent that it
seems they may as well be. These suppliers
of everything from foreign-language
hits to quirky American sleepers
to two-fisted martial arts twaddle are all
history, the victims of unrealistic goals,
a fierce exhibition market, a shifting
video market, and the Wall Street crash
of '87. With obstacles such as these to
overcome, the question is not why all
these companies failed, but how could
any of them survived?
To answer this question there is no
better place to turn than New Line Cinema,
not only because the company
continues to stride steadily along as it
waves farewell to its fallen competition,
but because it is one of the few produc-
14 BOXOKUCK
Milchell Goldman
er/distributors of its size which still has
its phones connected. Indeed, this schizophrenic
movie company, which has
recently been responsible for everything
from the "Nightmare on Elm
Street" series to "Torch Song Trilogy" to
the quirky and popular "Hairspray" to
the wrestling romp "No Holds Barred,"
appears to be as sturdy as ever. So while
no one enjoys picking over the remains
of the dead, it seems that the easiest
way to find out what New Line is doing
right is to ask what all of these other
companies did wrong.
"I don't want to sound as if I'm gloating,
but I think we are the only independent
left not because independents as a
whole are in terrible trouble, but because
we did something right that they
didn't," says Mitch Goldman, New
Line's distribution chief "I know that
sounds egotistical, but I don't mean it
that way.
"We have kept to a game plan that
has served us pretty well. We protect
our downside and we are very cautious
with the dollars that we do expend on
our marketing and production. I think
that is one of the reasons why we have
been successful and other companies
have not. They have not had a game
plan that has proven itself out.
"I think one of our strengths is that
we're not forced to make pictures that
we don't believe in. Each theatrical picture
that we produce is made for the
theatrical marketplace and to make
money in the theatrical marketplace.
They are not made for video, or for foreign
television packages, or for television
syndication packages. They are
made to work in theatres, and if we can
get these pictures to work on that basis,
then the rest comes easily and profitably.
I don't know if all of these other
companies worked on this basis. I don't
think they did."
Michael Harpster, New Line's marketing
president, concurs with Goldman's
views. He also observes that, in
the case of some of these companies,
there simply wasn't the time to figure
out the industry'
"I think that basically the movie business
today is about the learning curve,
and the learning curve is about time,"
says Harpster, who has been with New
Line since 1970. "If you don't have time
to play the game, then you can't get a
learning curve. Vestron couldn't get a
learning curve together because they
just ran out of time."
A Track Record
Certainly one of New Line's strong
suits is its longevity. Launched in 1967
by 27-year-old Fulbright scholar Robert
Shaye, the company learned early on
about the concept of niche marketing,
whereby a distributor determines the
core audience for a film and markets it
directly to them. By foregoing the costs
and disappointments of a blanket release,
the shrewd implementation of
such a strategy can be veiy lucrative.
One of Shaye's earliest triumphs was
a sign of things to come. While attending
a function sponsored by a marijuana
legalization organization in the early
'70s, the mogul-to-be was witness to a
screening of "Reefer Madness," the
anti-drug film from the '30s which offered
a howlingly out-dated cautionary
message. Having noticed two things —
that the audience loved its camp value,
and that the copyright on the film had
lapsed — Shaye secured the rights to
the movie, pitched it directly to college
campuses, and eventually earned
around $2 million. He recognized the
film's potential, he marketed it to its
logical audience, and he cleaned up.
Michael Harpster