In rapid succession, New Line has scored three movie properties peppered with the kind of A-level talent previously reserved for the major studios.
Production prexy Michael De Luca and exec veep Richard Saperstein have purchased:
the Michael Olshaker novel "The Edge"-- about the hunt for a serial killer done with Hitchkockian overtones -- for Renny Harlin to direct with Michael Levy producing;
The Andy Walker script "Seven," about two cops chasing a psychopath committing a series of unusual crimes, with Arnold Kopelson producing and David Koepp supervising Walker's rewrite;
And "Tabloid," a Kasi Lemmons script which Michelle Pfeiffer and partner Kate Guinzburg will produce. Pfeiffer will star as a prestigious foreign correspondent disgraced by a scandal who finds herself at the bottom of the journalism food chain, digging dirt up at a tabloid.
This follows a spurt of dealmaking that began to change the town's perception of Bob Shaye's indie, which, having been boughtby Ted Turner, has finally decided to make pricier pictures a staple of its diet.
The one misperception, De Luca and Saperstein feel, is the notion that they're a couple of kids in a candy store. "Two-thirds of the films are going to be traditional New Line projects," said De Luca. "With the rest, we're talking about six or eight pictures, and as Bob Shaye puts it, even though we can now browse in more expensive stores, we're still very smart shoppers."
That includes a decision to gamble $ 7 million that Jim Carrey's success in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" wasn't a fluke. To keep Carrey from jumping at the numerous studio pictures thrown his way, they paid him a star's salary for "Dumb & Dumber," and are negotiating a similar payday for "The Best Man."
Said De Luca: "Who wouldn't make a $ 15 million Jim Carrey broad comedy after 'Ace Ventura,' and what we know his next film, 'The Mask' will be?"
"There will be three specific budget ranges of films we do," De Luca said. "There will be the $ 3 million to $ 10 million, the $ 10 million to $ 18 million , and $ 18 million to $ 35 million, with $ 35 million being the cap. But I'm just as pumped up over 'Freddy vs. Jason' as I am about any of the things we're talking about in the higher level."
"We haven't found anything in that high category yet," said Saperstein. "We won't hit that level until we find the right script."
The Kopelson project, the second he's set up at New Line -- the producer has a first look deal at Warner Bros. -- will likely get close. Kopelson expected the film to require at least a $ 25 million budget: "We're already in discussions with directors, and this will call for two A-list actors and an A-list director.
"I've been very impressed with both De Luca and Saperstein, and Bob and I entered the business at the same time, and he's given me a vote of confidence with any projects I choose to bring to the company."
Kopelson's exec producer will be Phyllis Carlyle, who brought him the project after it languished at Penta.
Whether or not to get involved in a project is a decision usually made between De Luca and Saperstein, who despite differing backgrounds said they share similar tastes. In fact, De Luca drafted Saperstein into the studio ranks after the former ICM agent helped him assemble such projects as "Above the Rim, ""National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1,""Don Juan De Marco and the Centerfold" (featuring Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando), as well as "Amelia and the King of Plants," a new romantic comedy script by Michael Goldenberg.
They also clicked, they agree, on their ambition for what they are trying to do, which, according to Saperstein is: "If New Line was regarded as independent, the hope is to become the first truly independent major."
The other hope is that the indie overcomes what has been a major problem: New Line often broke in talent like Renny Harlin, Warrington and Reginald Hudlin, and Allen and Albert Hughes, only to watch them jump to bigger budget fare at the studios.
"They're ready to do bigger projects, and I'm really happy to be the first to return," said Harlin, whose breakthrough pic was "Nightmare on Elm Street 4."
The pictures, really beginning with "Don Juan," will be the thing to stop the skeptics. But the town is starting to regard them seriously.
"They're hip and young and loose, a style that's a perfect antidote for a lot of the way business is done at various studios," said William Morris Agency senior veep Joan Hyler, whose client, Rutger Hauer, will soon star in "Surviving the Game."
Another obstacle, said ICM president Jim Wiatt, has been getting agencies to entrust talent with them. He feels the addition of Saperstein helped. "They've given credibility to New Line, whose past image was for the profitable but exploitive type of material," Wiatt said. "They have expanded that so they're covered like the rest of the studios, or certainly they are here."
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