Hindi
Time Warner merges Warner Bros with New Line Cinema
MUMBAI: US media conglomerate Time Warner, Inc has consolidated its filmed entertainment businesses, Warner Brothers Entertainment and New Line Cinema.
The combination brings together New Line‘s 40-year legacy as an independent film studio with Warner Bros‘ scale and reach in global distribution and marketing.
As part of the consolidation, New Line will be operated as a unit of Warner Bros. New Line will maintain separate development, production, marketing, distribution and business affairs operations. But to maximise film performance and operating efficiencies, achieve significant cost savings, and improve margins, it will closely integrate and coordinate those functions with Warner Bros.
Time Warner president and CEO Jeff Bewkes said, “We are moving quickly to improve our business performance and financial returns. New Line has built a strong franchise of cutting-edge entertainment. We can enhance its value by combining it with Warner Bros. Given the trend toward fewer movie releases, New Line and Warner Bros will now have more complementary release slates, with New Line focusing on genres that have been its strength.
“With the growing importance of international revenues, it makes sense for New Line to retain its international film rights and to exploit them through Warner Bros‘ global distribution infrastructure. We can also take better advantage of digital distribution platforms by combining our studios. These changes will enhance our revenue opportunities and drive dramatic cost efficiencies and higher margins at New Line.”
New Line‘s co-chairmen and co-CEOs Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne have decided to leave the studio, but are in discussions about possible future business relationships with the company.
Bewkes adds, “Bob and Michael have a unique partnership that is noteworthy not only for its stability and longevity, but for its record of innovation and success. They have guided New Line‘s growth from a privately-held art film distributor to the world‘s leading independent film studio that is home to some of the most popular films in entertainment history, including The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Mask, Austin Powers, Rush Hour, Wedding Crashers and Hairspray. We thank Bob and Michael for their enduring contributions to Time Warner and look forward to a continuing working relationship with them.”
Shaye and Lynne said, “New Line has been our respective life‘s work as well as our second family. While we‘re sad to be leaving, we‘re enormously proud to have overseen its extraordinary growth and worked with so many dedicated and talented colleagues. New Line represents innovation, creativity and independent success.
“We hope that the company can continue to be a leader in creating entertainment that resonates around the world. We will now focus our efforts on exploring new entrepreneurial opportunities.”
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
