Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
It seems impossible to believe, an executive shuffle on the same magnitude as Katzenberg leaving Disney. Mike De Luca of New Line is leaving, set to be replaced by New Line music president Toby Emmerich, who also scripted FREQUENCY. The story was broken by Inside.com earlier this afternoon, and I've been getting as many calls about that as about Sundance this afternoon. It's sent ripples through the creative community, and the fallout should be immense for the company, coming hot on the heels of the Time/Warner merger with AOL.
I'm sure I can't begin to imagine the complexity of the relationship De Luca has with Bob Shaye, with the company that's he's been part of for so long now. In the time I've been actively covering the film industry, I've always thought of De Luca as one of the good guys, a champion of all sorts of tricky material, a guy who made some great movies, some lousy movies, and a whole lot of headlines. He's an outsized personality, and he's been painted as a bad boy by much of the press. Choices he made will continue to reverberate for the company will into 2004 and beyond. Wherever he goes next, I'm sure De Luca will be a valuable resource and a major force.
There's going to be more blood spilt at New Line over the next few weeks, too, and the overall identity of the company could be changing in the coming years. One thing's for sure... whatever you thought of as New Line before now is done. It was a combination of some powerful personalities, and they're scattering now. The company that's now part of the AOL/Time/Warner family is a new one, and it will be worth our time to keep our eye on them as they change.
"Moriarty" out.
