New Line's Survivor Party: We regret overlooking this story Tuesday afternoon, but the news that New Line plans its annual summer party despite pink-slipping its founders (and more than 500 other staffers) in April can't really get old, can it? Especially not with the party coming up tomorrow night at SkyBar of all places — a $35,000 fete for 45 people, according to Nikki Finke, with whom "studio insiders" debate the figure and argue that "[e]ven in the worst years New Line always had that party. ... Toby [Emmerich] felt like the summer party is part of New Line's DNA and to change that is a mistake." OK, but this is the last time: Expect Warner Bros. to absorb the party planning and invitation distribution duties in 2009, only to push the event back to 2010 when its other parties that year threaten to underperform. [DHD]

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After the unfortunate reception for The Love Guru, it's just too easy to write off New Line's prospective Austin Powers revival (which Mike Myers is reportedly working on for New Line with former series collaborator Mike McCullers) as yet another ill-advised folly belching the black smoke of Myers's career. In fact, taken as merely a part of the larger phenomenon we at Defamer like to call The End of Ideas, the Powers franchise is but a speck of the shit on Hollywood's collective bathroom wall — a tableau diligently studied today by the haz-mat crew at Entertainment Weekly.

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· Mad Men's second season opened to a strong start for AMC, pulling in 1.9 million aspiring womanizers and the pregnant secretaries who love them. [Variety]
· The Venice Film Festival announced its slate, which will include world premieres of Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, Kathryn Bigelow's Hurt Locker, and the Coens's Burn After Reading. [Variety]
· Deposed New Line potentates Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne's first post-studio-snuffing project will be an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's sci-fi epic Foundations for Warner Bros. The duo have an eye on adapting the book's sequels into a Lord of the Rings-style franchise, with Andy Serkis playing Andromeda, a kindly robot, and the speed of light. [THR]
· CBS is developing a pilot for updated version of The Streets of San Francisco. We humbly request they retain those cool diagonal stripe-wipes from the title sequence. Those rock! [THR]
· Mutinous SAG splinter-group Unite for Strength agrees with the current leadership that the AMPTP's offer is unacceptable, but differs strongly in other areas, such as where they'd like to order in lunch. (Koo Koo Roo, vs. the Alan Rosenberg-championed Chin Chin.) [Variety]

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The universe is piling on Warner Bros. today, with the studio bracing itself for its second straight summer misfire while the output from its recently euthanized offshoots New Line and Picturehouse achieved phenomenal successes in consecutive weeks. But NL's opening windfall for Sex and the City and Picturehouse's $27K-per-screen average last weekend for Mongol — the biggest art-house launch of the year to date — might not have anything on the 'House's toy-based, girly-girl follow-up, reports The NY Times:

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The Brazilian wax you scheduled to coincide with your Sex and the City opening night party may have now given way to the discomforting condition known as a Bolivian rash—but luckily for you there exists no better topical salve than the weekend's boffo numbers:

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As first foreseen here last week, bad news rolled into Picturehouse HQ today in the form of a batch of pink slips. Warner Bros, is shuttering the art-house/indie/foreign distribution arm in the wake of its belt-tightening at Picturehouse's parent company New Line; we're a little more surprised, however, to read that Warners is also closing shop at Warner Independent Pictures. We knew Jeff Robinov and Alan Horn were unhappy with the boutique business, but Jesus. Picturehouse chief Bob Berney and WIP boss Polly Cohen, tagged for a possible (if implausible) power-sharing arrangement as recently as last week, are both being shown the door, as are both offices' staffs in New York and Los Angeles. We'll be following up later with word on that rumoured independent venture of Berney's, but in the meantime, the full press release from Warner Bros. follows after the jump.

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A few notes kicked under the door at Defamer HQ hint that the end may be near for Picturehouse, the Oscar-winning art house shingle plunged into limbo in February after its parent company New Line was absorbed by the Warner Bros. mothership. We have yet to hear where company president Bob Berney will wind up, though a popular rumour has him sharing power at Warners' other struggling boutique outpost, Warner Independent Pictures, with current WIP boss Polly Cohen. We posit at least one more underdog alternative as well — plus a prognosis for the remaining Picturehouse output — after the jump.

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For what seems like an entire century, ladies and ladyboys have been anxiously awaiting the release of the ultimate "chick flick," Sex And The City: The Movie (have we mentioned how godawful that title is by the way?). In any case, yesterday we had the privilege of seeing the final one-sheet for the film which is set to open next month. And almost immediately, we began griping about it (annoyingly, just the way Carrie Bradshaw whined over her column's bus ad during the first season). After the jump, we discuss all the various problems with this image, from that dress to that font to, well, almost everything, boiled down into three primary points:

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Sad news to report. The rumors that we heard earlier this afternoon about impending layoffs at The House That Freddy Built have come to fruition. Variety is reporting that Time Warner is pinkslipping 450 New Line staffers, a number that equates to nearly 90% of their current payroll, as the newly scaled-down shingle merges into the larger Warner Bros fold. The worst part? Although notifications of the dismissals began earlier this afternoon, they won't be completed until tomorrow, which means that a number of employees will be spending the evening unsure as to whether or not they'll even have a job at this time tomorrow. Synergy just ain't what it used to be. If you hear or see anything else (memos, etc.), please send 'em our way. [Variety]

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A tip into Defamer HQ suggests that today may be the last for the majority of remaining employees at New Line Cinema, the Time Warner subsidiary that has spent the last month transitioning from a stand-alone operation to a genre cog in the Warner Bros. machine. The speculation trickled down a little bit ago from a few private industry message boards; it would be the culmination of news expected since co-founders Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne made their own departures public Feb. 28. Production head Toby Emmerich surprised most observers last month by staying on as president and COO, but he's in the minority likely to stay on as the labels consolidate. Let us know if you've heard the same — you know where to find us.

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