John Waters and New Line Cinema go way back, almost to the beginning. In 1972, New Line and its founder, Robert Shaye, took a chance on a proudly perverse Baltimore director and his film about a dog-poop-eating transvestite.
The gamble paid off and Pink Flamingos put both John Waters and New Line on the map. Since then, Waters has cemented his distinction as the twisted bad boy of cinema, releasing more than a dozen films (eight of them through New Line) and becoming the darling of the indie-film world.
Yesterday, however, Waters was in a reflective mood. The news last week, that the giant Time-Warner media conglomerate was folding New Line into Warner Bros. as a cost-cutting move, ending its run as a separate studio and costing Shaye his job, marked the end of an era. Not to mention the end of a relationship that proved both beneficial and enduring.
"I've been with that company since 1972, so I feel a little bit like an orphan," said Waters, taking time to reflect on his long-standing relationship with New Line. "I've been with Bob Shaye from the beginning. They were the first distributor that mixed art, exploitation and Hollywood altogether. To me, it's emotional, very emotional."
After Pink Flamingos, New Line continued to champion small films by distinctive directors, people such as Alexander Payne (About Schmidt), Spike Lee (Bamboozled), Martha Coolidge (Rambling Rose) and Mike Figgis (One Night Stand). But it also acquired a taste for blockbusters, hitting box-office and Oscar gold with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which earned more than $1 billion in the U.S. alone.
Plenty of other filmmakers have established enduring relationships with their studios, such as Clint Eastwood with Warner Bros. and Steven Spielberg with Universal. But there was something special, almost touching, about Waters and New Line.
Back when the only place to see Waters' films was in subterranean art houses and other hangouts similarly off the beaten path, and when you didn't admit to seeing the films in respectable company, New Line signed on with this guy. Pink Flamingos didn't make anyone a millionaire, but its national distribution gave Waters a prominence beyond the streets of Baltimore, and gave New Line instant credibility among young, nonconformist filmmakers eager to follow his example.
"Without Bob Shaye seeing a spark there, John may never have happened," says Steve Yeager, a film instructor at Towson University whose 1998 documentary Divine Trash, on the making of Pink Flamingos, won the Filmmakers Trophy at that year's Sundance Film Festival. "[Pink Flamingos] really did put New Line on the map; it gave them the authority to become an underground distributor."
Shaye and he became friends, Waters says, not just business associates. "I've gone all over the world on New Line. I've been to lunatic nightclubs in Berlin with Bob and fancy restaurants in Cannes. I knew his family. He sent his daughter to work with us on Hairspray when she was 17."
Recent years had been tough on New Line, which was never able to meet the heightened expectations of profitability brought on by The Lord of the Rings. Films such as The Last Mimzy, Little Children and The Butterfly Effect proved to be underperformers, while offerings such as Final Destination 3 and Blade: Trinity couldn't replicate the success of earlier franchise entries.
Even a relative success like last year's The Golden Compass, which realized $260 million in overseas ticket sales, proved a mixed blessing. New Line had sold the overseas distribution rights, and the film made less than $70 million domestically.
Still, Waters says the company didn't act like one whose future was in doubt. Last year's 40th- anniversary celebration at New York's Lincoln Center was a star-studded affair, he says.
But when the ax fell last week, Waters says, the end wasn't totally unexpected. "I had heard plenty of grumbling," he says. "I saw Bob in Hollywood during Oscar week; he looked kind of depressed."
Not that Waters seems to have much to worry about. He's a bankable director; his next project, "a terribly wonderful children's Christmas adventure" called Fruitcake, has its financing all lined up. His DVDs will remain available, his reputation secure.
Still, "it's very much the end of an era," he says.
But perhaps there's solace to be found in these two footnotes to the Waters-New Line partnership. When the studio released a 40-film retrospective to mark its 40th anniversary, the first film in the collection was Pink Flamingos. And New Line's last major success, under Shaye's tenure: the musical version of Waters' Hair- spray, which lined the company's coffers with some $118.8 million.
chris.kaltenbach@baltsun.com