New Line Cinema is introducing four new pictures to buyers at Cannes: Secondhand Lions; the long-awaited Dumb And Dumber prequel; action thriller Highwaymen; and clash of the horror titans movie Freddy Vs Jason to be directed by Ronny Yu.

New Line, which has its first ever film in competition with Alexander Payne's About Schmidt, will be at the market in force under worldwide distribution and marketing chief Rolf Mittweg and New Line International (NLI) president Cam Galano.

NLI will continue sales on its rat remake Willard and Final Destination 2 and will also be talking up upcoming pictures like woman in jeopardy thriller Westward. Hot on the heels of The Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, New Line will also be handing out scripts to the first film in another epic fantasy trilogy based on the His Dark Material books by Philip Pullman.

Fine Line production Ripley's Game starring John Malkovich and Dougray Scott will be screened, while the company is looking to close a renewal of its longterm deal with Entertainment Film Distributors in the UK as well as completing deals in other territories.

The new films are:

Secondhand Lions is about a timid ten year-old (Haley Joel Osment) who is passed off one summer on to his two mysterious great uncles. Robert Duvall is in talks to co-star in the film written and directed by Tim McCanlies.

Dumb And Dumber: The Early Years was written by Brian Hart (TV's Mad-TV) and follows Lloyd and Harry when they meet each other on the last day of highschool.

Freddy Vs Jason teams up the two villains as they battle it out. Ronny Yu (Bride Of Chucky, The 51st State) directs with Robert Englund and Kane Hodder in the title roles.

Highwaymen is an action thriller about a man whose flesh and bones are held together by braces and pins who murders women in a 72 El Dorado car. The film is directed by Robert Harmon (Radar's They).

New Line also has a 50% stake in Paul Thomas Anderson's competition entry Punch-Drunk Love. The film was produced by Joe Roth's Revolution Studios.