New Line Cinema Boss Richard Brener Poised To Jump To New Paramount-Warner Bros

EXCLUSIVE: New Line President and CCO and the genre label’s longest running employee Richard Brener is expected to make the jump to the new Paramount Warner Bros studio, Skydance, sources have informed us. We hear that Brener will continue to steer New Line.

As made known this morning, Paramount Production Co-Chairs Dana Golberg and Josh Greenstein will have all Warner Bros labels report into them. The merger is expected to close early next week.

Brener has been a lynchpin for the biggest horror movies ever including The Conjuring franchise, the feature take of Stephen King’s It movies, the Final Destination franchise and its recent revival as well as Zach Cregger’s Oscar winning blockbuster Weapons among several others. Incoming to the new Paramount will be New Line’s next movie with Cregger, the original sci-fi title The Flood (Aug. 11, 2028) as well as Weapons prequel, Gladys (Sept. 8, 2028) among others. Oh, and let’s not forget the next Lord of the Rings movie in that mega billion grossing franchise next year, the Andy Serkis directed The Hunt for Gollum (Dec. 17, 2027). Brener is also coming into the Melrose lot with Evil Dead Wrath (Aug. 7, 2028) and Final Destination 7 (May 12, 2028).

Brener was first hired by New Line production boss Michael De Luca in 1995. Brener starrted as a temp and rose through the New Line corporate ladder to story editor then to SVP. He was also SVP-COO at one point in the mid aughts. He’s known for managing talent and filmmaker relationships eloquently. When comedies were the rage at the theatrical box office, Brener was also a lynchpin for shepherding such fare, i.e. The Wedding Singer, Wedding Crashers, the Sex and the City movies and the Austin Powers franchise (the list goes on).

Last year Brener saw the highest grossing movie in the The Conjuring series, Last Rites, posting close to half billion at the global box office. Final Destination: Bloodlines posted the biggest ever box office for that franchise with $317.8M, directed by young filmmakers Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein.

Brener’s jump to the new Skydance comes in the wake of DC Studio’s Bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran also making the transition. Warner Bros Motion Picture Chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are departing. For the most part, we’re hearing there are no other anticipated exec changes at the other Warner Bros labels.

Paramount didn’t respond to request for comment.