Bob Shaye is back!

There are certainly lots of people in the movie business who are more charming and less volatile than Bob Shaye. But few are as brutally frank and emotionally engaged in the craft of filmmaking as the founder of New Line Cinema, who had a great 40-year run before Time Warner put him (and his partner Michael Lynne) out to pasture earlier this year.

Each year I write a column that is, essentially, a report card about the performance of the major studios. I recently offered a withering assessment of New Line's slate, saying the studio had lost its focus, made some hapless sequels and managed to go an entire year without releasing a decent youth comedy, once the studio's bread and butter. When Shaye called the day the column appeared, I held the phone away from my ear, expecting fireworks. Instead, he said calmly: "Everything you wrote was completely accurate. Trust me, I'm just as disappointed as you are."

Bob's biggest problem was that (as the father of two daughters) he brought a series of surrogate sons into the New Line fold--i.e. the family business--put his faith in their talents and usually ended up being disappointed by the results. Son No. 1 was Mike De Luca, who came to New Line as an intern, learned at Bob's feet, put New Line in business with all sorts of young filmmaking stars (notably Paul Thomas Anderson), but eventually chafed at what he viewed as constant second-guessing from Shaye. When the company hit the skids in the late 1990s, hurt by flops like "Town and Country," De Luca took the fall.

Son No. 2 is Toby Emmerich, who joined New Line in 1992 in the music department. He was still largely unknown in Hollywood when Shaye handed him the production chief job after De Luca's departure. Emmerich did a better job of managing Shaye's expectations, but in recent years, he was also frustrated by Shaye's blunt critique of films like "Sex and the City," which Shaye wrote off as a failure after a first look at the director's cut. Son No. 3 is Brett Ratner, who was an obscure video director when Shaye gave him his first directing assignment, a comedy with a young comic named Chris Tucker. Ratner made three of his first four movies at New Line and kept the studio's "Rush Hour" franchise alive by sheer moxie and charm. But when the series' third installment fell behind schedule, Shaye railed at what he perceived as Ratner's lack of discipline. Sometimes, all was forgiven. Sometimes, not.

Now Shaye (and Lynne) are announcing the launch of a new film company that will put them back in the filmmaking business. Is there a fourth surrogate son--or perhaps a surrogate daughter--in Shaye's future? What kind of movies does Shaye want to make this time around? And how is he handling life after New Line? Here's an exclusive interview with Shaye that also appears in a more condensed form in Thursday's Calendar section:

New Line founder Bob Shaye is easily the most complicated, combative and prickly studio boss the modern day movie business has ever seen. Perhaps that's why I'm so delighted to see that he's poised to make a comeback after being given the boot earlier this year by Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes, who axed most of New Line's 500 employees in a get-tough cost-cutting measure designed to impress restive Time Warner stockholders.

In an era where the business is dominated by timid bean-counters in stylish suits, Shaye is a throwback to the riverboat-gambler types who used to thrive in Hollywood, having risked his company's future time and again, most notably when he agreed to make a trilogy of "Lord of the Rings" films after everyone else had shown "LOTR" filmmaker Peter Jackson the door.

After laying low and licking his wounds for several months, Shaye gave me his first interview since Bewkes folded New Line into Warner Bros. back in February. It has long been rumored that Shaye and New Line co-chairman Michael Lynne would resurface with a new production company. Now Shaye is making it official, saying he and Lynne have formed a new company, Unique Features, which will make two to four films a year, funded and distributed by Warners as part of a three-year first-look distribution deal with the conglomerate.

Shaye says the company will have a dozen or so employees, most of them in Los Angeles in temporary digs just a floor above the old second-floor New Line headquarters on Robertson Boulevard. "It'll be a very democratic company," Shaye told me. "Everybody will share in whatever success we have. I'm expecting the receptionist to be as prescient about the marketplace as I am."

Shaye's critics would probably say it wouldn't be hard to find a receptionist with a better eye for hit movies than the boss. New Line had a great 40-year run, helping to create the modern-day comedy business, championing African American talent and overseeing such hit franchises as "The Lord of the Rings," "Rush Hour," "Austin Powers," "Blade" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street." But in the past few years, New Line was an also-ran among major studios, hurt by a lack of creative energy and focus.

Shaye admits that New Line had its problems, saying, "We got too big and there were too many political dramas going on." He says he wasn't involved in most of the company's creative decisions in recent years. "I ended up being a cheerleader and an administrator, but I really didn't have an opportunity to implement my real production desires and interests. I missed putting my stamp on the movies we were making."

He says things will be different with Unique Features. "It won't have anyone else's stamp on it except Michael and myself. That's one of the things that I'm excited about. I'll be much more directly involved as an advocate for projects. I won't just be going with the flow. I'll be making hands-on decisions about what is entertaining."

Shaye bristled when I reminded him that, according to New Line lore, if he'd been picking the studio's releases, they probably never would have made any of their comedy hits. Shaye would often toss away comedy scripts, complaining they were too broad or juvenile. "That's total nonsense," he responded. "I liked a lot of our comedies. [New Line production chief] Toby Emmerich is fond of saying I didn't like 'Wedding Crashers,' but I think his memory is foggy. I wasn't enthusiastic about it as a script, but once Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson got on board, the movie's chemistry showed up."

It was Shaye who plucked Emmerich from obscurity in 2001, making him New Line's production chief after Shaye fired longtime production boss Mike De Luca. Emmerich's relations with Shaye have been strained in recent months, with Emmerich staying on to run the company after Shaye and Lynne were sent packing. Recalling a 2007 Cedric the Entertainer flop that Emmerich had championed, Shaye added: "If you want to talk about comedy taste, remember that I didn't like 'Code Name: The Cleaner' either."

Shaye's insistence on keeping his new company's offices in the Warner-owned New Line building struck many observers as an unusual move for someone who'd been unceremoniously ousted from the company he ran for 40 years. His presence on the premises led to a recent dust-up where Emmerich got into a noisy altercation with Shaye's assistant after Emmerich parked his motorcycle in Shaye's parking space one weekend. Shaye downplayed the conflict, saying "Toby and I are having a conversation about that right now. I'm sure it will all work out."

But Shaye couldn't downplay his feelings about the way Warners fired 450 staffers, refusing all of Shaye and Lynne's efforts to save as many employees as they could. When Shaye first tried to speak about his forced exit from the company he started in his Greenwich Village apartment four decades ago his voice cracked and he began to weep. He had to take a few moments to compose himself.

"It was profoundly sad and painful," he finally said, his voice raw with emotion. "I've only had two other times in my recent past where I've suffered so much. One was when I lost my dog and the other was when I lost such a huge amount of my net worth because I kept my Time Warner stock because I believed in the greater good at the company. You read stories in the newspaper about factories being closed and people's lives being displaced and imagining what happens when people have to start all over again...."

He stopped to compose himself again. "Well, it's one thing to read about it in the paper and another thing to walk down the halls of our building on June 27, which was the last day of the old New Line. There were a lot of tears. It was tough to deal with. I felt like a 40-year-old child had been taken away from me. This company was my best friend in my life."

Shaye is still wrestling with his feelings about Bewkes, who Shaye had considered a good friend. "Jeff is a very enigmatic and idiosyncratic guy," he says. "I don't have any animosity toward him. I still think of him as a, well, as a past friend. I just wish he'd let us go a different route and buy the company, but that wasn't in the cards."

Now Shaye is ready to start all over again. But why? He's an extremely wealthy man who's in good health and retains lots of outside interests. At age 69, why wouldn't he do what David Geffen is doing--get out of the business and cruise around the world on a yacht? It turns out that Shaye and Geffen have talked about that very thing, but Shaye says he's simply a different person.

"That's great for David, but for me, it sounds dreary to be on a boat for a year," says Shaye. "I love movies. And I'm excited about being a seller instead of just being a buyer. I'm excited about using the fertility of my brain, which thank god, isn't fallow yet."

He laughs. "You know, they once asked Stanley Kubrick why he never took a vacation. And he said, 'A vacation from what?' I just want to keep doing what I love."

Photo of Bob Shaye by Justin Lane

Comments

[B. Laesch]

Great article. As a former New Line employee (albeit for a year), it really was sad to see the way it all ended. I wish Bob Shaye the best of luck with Unique Features. I'll be rooting for him for sure. And coming from such a tenured former film industry player as myself, that translates into big calculated bucks at the Box Office.

B. Laesch

[George Presman]

I hope that bob succeeds in this new venture, i never really had tiime to chat w him, but i always knew he was a man that gave people /colleagues an opportunity or a chance to prove there talent. I know this to be true, Look at my nephew now , and maybe one day i will be given that opportunity to show the world i got it too. Never give up your dreams or passion. Thanks Bob for being the man you are.
Sincerely
George P

[tres passin]

40 yrs. in the Biz, big successes, fame & fortune--and he and another over-inflated Hollywood ego are arguing over a parking space. That generated a bigger laugh than all of New Line's comedies combined.

[Mike C.]

boo hoo, poor bob. he ran a studio into the ground and lost his job because of it. so sad. let me get this straight: shaye claims that he "didn't have an opportunity to implement my real production desires and interests"? that's interesting - seems like THE LAST MIMZY might have been exactly that opportunity. he greenlighted, DIRECTED and funneled the vast majority of their marketing budget into that ridiculous box office bomb, which was co-written by his president of production! i'm pretty sure that qualifies as "putting his stamp" on a movie. some might even call that a conflict of interest (and justification for stock holders to feel a bit "restive"). that project, in a nutshell, is why new line failed, and why any sympathy for this crusty old has-been is sorely misplaced. the loyal employees of new line - they're the ones who warrant sympathy. they deserved much better than bob shaye and toby emmerich.

of course, whenever bob does feel a little blue, he's always got patrick goldstein to make him feel better. pathetic.

[Ben Raultor]

Mr. Goldstein,

I will no longer be reading anything you write. It's all b.s. You are so scared of the culture that it is impossible for you to blog or report with an unbias. You

[Freddy K.]

Bob's dog jumped off Paul Allen's boat as it cruised the Caribbean. Suicide? Who knows.

[Self pitying film director]

As one who, along with many others, is a director who was exploited by Shaye during the early to mid NewLine saga, I have nothing but contempt for his whining self importance.

This is a man of considerable intellect who chose the path of creative book-keeping while posing as the friend of the artist. He posed as a benign version of Harry Cohen, while, all the time, making it difficult - nay, impossible - for those idiots like me who believed he was one of the good guys, to collect what was due to them.

It is said that he gave a first chance to many artists, and this may be so. But that opportunity was accompanied by an agreement - both legal and, more importantly - moral, to share in the rewards of successful pictures.

Our film did well for NewLine, but it took the probing of experts in unearthing slippery behavior to get NewLine to cough up even the smallest amount of money to the investors. And I have no doubt that Bob was making the major decisions for the accounting department.

Signed,

A self-pitying film director.

[Rich]

So why is "Dan Burns" not credited on his greatest accomplishment as he is a co. Creator of 2005 #1 Comedy Film "Wedding Crashers"? is Bob Shaye not wanting to share the spotlight and or credit? Dan Burns A.K.A. Danny Burns may be ½ crazy yet he is a crazy genius of the likes of Qwinten Tarantino like and stile of writing, Dan Burns brings to every and all of his Film, Television and Music Video projects.Dan Burns = 'Tinsel Town's best-kept secret weapon', His anonymity is in part of a lack of credits by choice, Mr. Burns showed a eye for capturing shots "that moment” of action sports photography early on in his career, and transition into radio announcing, to radio show producing thure the 1990's, than into Film / TV / Music Video's from the Millenium to present. Dan Burns is one of Hollywood’s best-kept secrets, and He has tried very hard to keep it this way. Mr. Burns is one of the best creators in the biz, and wants to stay behind the seines, Dan Burns diverse working experience in successful Film’s / T.V. and creative Music Video’s, make him uniquely qualified to work with leaders and business teams in the entertainment industry that would like to be more successful in entertainment. Through his work as a producer and creator in Hollywood, he has gained a one of a kind rich, vivid and varied perspective on how industry leaders can effectively lead and manage creators and business challenges. Mr. Burns has bean requested several times to speak publicly yet has declined most every time, Mr. Burns wants to remain unknown to keep his anonymity and stay unknown and anonymous to the masses, although Mr. Burns has privately coached executives, and creative managers at ABC-TV, NBC-TV, Sony Pictures, Touchstone Television, Walt Disney, Mary Ellis Bunim, MTV Networks, E!Entertainment, British Telecom, Environmental Protection Agency, IGT, Creative Light Entertainment, Ect, Ect, Ect. Occupation = Director, Producer, Creator, Executive producer, Gender = Male, Birth Details = Born 07/28/1977 Hermiston, Oregon, United States Nationality = American. Presently resides = Beverly Hills, CA.