Warner Bros. Closes Boutique Subsidiaries
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In an effort to cut costs, Warner Bros. Studios is closing its Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures subsidiaries, eliminating about 70 jobs. Those divisions specialized in foreign and independent films rather than more mainstream blockbusters. The announcement came Thursday, three months after the studio decided to fold its New Line Cinema division into Warner Bros. Some 500 studio employees lost their jobs as a result of the absorption of New Line into Warner Bros.
But Warner Bros. won’t be getting out of the independent film business altogether, the president and chief operation officer, Alan Horn, told Variety Thursday. He cited the critical and box-office successes of such movies as “March of the Penguins” and “La Vie en Rose,” and said the studio would still acquire and produce specialty films.
