Will Warner Independent swallow Picturehouse Films?

With Warner Bros putting the lid on New Line activity, the next order of business is to figure out what to do with the house that gave us Oscar-winning Marion Cotillard’s La Vie en rose. Word is that WB topper Jeff Robinov will decide the fate of Picturehouse Films‘ and whether current president Bob Berney will play a role with the remnants of the company. The most probable move is Picturehouse’s merging their product into Warner Independent Pictures readily open 2008 slate.

Apart from the forthcoming releases of Snow Angels and Funny Games U.S., WIP has nothing lined up between March and August (Alan Ball’s Towelhead has an odd August 15th release date set). Unlike couple of years back ago scenrio that saw an uneasy move of United Artist’s films into SPC’s slate, it just so happens that Picturehouse has four titles that would fit perfectly into a WIP slate including the have a summer tentpole film Kit Kittredge: An American Girl – a family picture that should do a lot better in terms of B.O results than the ill-fated girl’s soccer movie Gracie.

Long gone are the MVP days with Newmarket – at Picturehouse, Berney’s B.O report card looked great with Pan’s Labyrinth but those finds were complimented with money-making misjudgments such as Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. But as Variety writes their are loads more people who are afraid fo the pending changes: “producers, filmmakers, screenwriters and talent and agents connected with New Line projects are on tenterhooks as they wait to hear the fate of their films”. More on the status of Picturehouse in the days and weeks to come.