Turns out Alliance Films didn’t lose its output deal with New Line Cinema, after all.

The Montreal-based distributor on Sept. 2 cemented its status as Canada’s largest indie distributor by renewing its long-running output deal for New Line product that was earlier placed in jeopardy after Warner Bros. took the mini-studio in-house.

But in an about-face, Warner Bros. decided against releasing its product in Canada through Warner Bros. Canada at the end of 2008, and will keep its pipeline to Alliance open until the end of 2009.

Also on Sept. 2, Alliance unveiled three more multi-year distribution deals, with U.S. giants Relativity Media, Grosvenor Park and Freestyle Releasing.

‘I’m very pleased that Alliance will represent the best of the new Hollywood in Canada,’ Alliance chairman and CEO Victor Loewy said of his latest business pacts.

And Loewy is possibly relieved. Alliance stood to lose New Line, and in fact did lose its output deal with Miramax not long after it was taken over by Goldman Sachs and Co. and received a $100-million cash injection from the Société générale de financement du Québec, which shifted Alliance’s headquarters to Montreal.

The latest deals will also greatly increase the number of films Alliance releases annually, as they come on top of existing output deals with Focus Features, The Weinstein Company, Overture Films and Remstar.

Alliance will release in the coming year around 69 movies in Canada, another two dozen in the U.K. and 22 in Spain.

The big new prize is Relativity Media, a deal negotiated at Cannes and one that has Alliance in a pact with a movie producer and film financier that partners with major studios or fully finances its own pictures.

Relativity will supply around half a dozen titles annually to Alliance for Canada and the U.K., starting with the thriller A Perfect Getaway, which stars Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant and Steve Zahn, and the Jim Sheridan drama Brothers, top-lined by Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire.

‘Alliance stood above the rest in that they have the experience working on large event-type films, have the know-how to maximize each film’s distribution and marketing,’ Relativity chief Ryan Kavanaugh said of the decision to go with Alliance after talks with rival Canadian distributors.

Grosvenor Park is expected to supply Alliance with five pictures annually, beginning with Disaster Movie by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

Titles to come from Freestyle Releasing include the Hallowe’en horror release The Haunting of Molly Hartley and the animated Delgo, voiced by Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddy Prinze Jr. and Val Kilmer.

Significantly, the latest output deals are with U.S. partners – prized in the Canadian market, as a successful theatrical release for Hollywood movies helps establish a distributor’s track record and a line of credit, and drives ancillary markets.

Rival Entertainment One has lined up its own U.S. output deals of late, including deals for product from Summit Entertainment and the Yari Film Group. And its acquisition of Maximum Films brought it a supply of product from Lakeshore Entertainment, Cinetic Media and IFC Films.

But Alliance has mostly eschewed art-house fare for big-event Hollywood pictures, which has given it a current 15% share of the Canadian market. That’s behind the major studios, but ahead of other Canadian players such as E1 and Maple Pictures.

And Alliance Films, which underwent a makeover after being taken over by Goldman Sachs, has also announced that Alison Cornwell will become its new CFO, after serving as CFO of the Sparrowhawk Media Group, which owns and operates the international Hallmark Channel.

And Patrick Roy is promoted to president and CEO of Alliance Vivafilm, the distributor’s successful Quebec arm.