For the capstone of his Hollywood Stories series exploring the 1990s — an era of explosive creativity and innovation in the entertainment industry — Richard Rushfield talks to two execs who helped New Line Cinema become the movie studio of that golden moment. Mike De Luca is today the co-chair and CEO of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, but in the ’90s he was the head of production at New Line, a powerful role he stepped into at the tender age of 27. Richard Brener started as a temp at New Line in 1995 and never left, working his way up to run the studio (now a division of Warner Bros.) as its president and chief creative officer. Together they recall how the indie house launched by Bob Shaye in 1967 struck gold nearly 30 years later with comedy blockbusters (Austin Powers, Dumb and Dumber, Rush Hour, The Wedding Singer) and revered auteur-driven dramas (American History X, Boogie Nights, Se7en). As an indie, "you were kind of locked into lower-budget acquisitions and films — that all coalesced into a business plan of sleeper hits," De Luca says. “We were not afraid of trying things that we liked, even if other people had passed on them.”

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