New Line Cinema

New Line Cinema is an American film studio founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent distributor of art-house and campus films, which grew over the following decades into what the industry called a "mini-major" studio. It built a reputation on horror franchises such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and broad comedies such as the Austin Powers series, and it financed and released Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, one of the most commercially and critically successful film series ever made. Turner Broadcasting acquired New Line in 1994, and it passed to Time Warner the following year; it now operates as a production label under Warner Bros.