New Line Home Entertainment

New Line Home Entertainment (formerly known as New Line Home Video) is the home entertainment distribution arm of New Line Cinema, founded in 1990. According to New Line's website, Misery was the first New Line Home Video release.^[1]

It is responsible for the distribution of all New Line Cinema theatrical films for release on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The company also distributes some feature films from the specialty studio Picturehouse (a New Line/HBO joint venture), as well as films or non theatrical programs produced or acquired by New Line Home Entertainment and New Line Television.

In the early years of the video division, New Line acquired some holdings of Nelson Entertainment (whose library included films inherited from Embassy Pictures) and released some Nelson-owned films on video, including The Graduate and Escape From New York, as well as Castle Rock Entertainment films such as City Slickers, Mr. Saturday Night, Honeymoon in Vegas, and the aforementioned Misery. All of these films have passed on to other companies, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and StudioCanal.

Before New Line formed its own video division, many of the company's films were released on video by various distributors. Initial offerings of New Line product came from MGM/CBS Home Video (for The Street Fighter and Return of the Street Fighter) and Wizard Video (for Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Sister Street Fighter, and The Street Fighter's Last Revenge). Later offerings came from RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video and its successor, Columbia/TriStar Home Video, Media Home Entertainment (for the first five Nightmare on Elm Street films, among others), and Live Entertainment (for the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, through Family Home Entertainment). When New Line formed the video division, RCA/Columbia and Columbia/TriStar distributed VHS releases, while Image Entertainment releasd the films on Laserdisc. The New Line-Columbia partnership stopped in early 1995, when Ted Turner bought New Line and its next videos from 1994 to 1996 were distributed by Turner's video division. One New Line film the company merely distributed, The Swan Princess, was distributed solely on video in 1995 by Turner Home Entertainment. From 1996 onward, New Line releases have been distributed by Warner Home Video, although still under the New Line banner.

On January 5, 2008, New Line Cinema announced, as did its parent company's own film studio, Warner Bros., they would exclusively support Blu-ray Disc for their films and drop support of HD DVD. The only New Line Home Entertainment HD DVD ever released was Pan's Labyrinth.^[2] However while New Line had its own independence from its parent company, it pursued a policy of regional lockout with its Blu-ray titles. This was in direct contrast to its corporate sibling Warner Home Video which left its Blu-ray titles region-free. However with the studio being folded into Warner Bros. Warner has decided to discontinue this lockout policy with future titles.

See also

• List of notable home video companies
• Infinifilm
• New Line Platinum Series

References

1. ^ New Line Cinema : About Us
2. ^ New Line Details Transition to Blu-ray | High-Def Digest