Gramercy Pictures was an Americanfilm production label. It was founded on May 20, 1992 as ajoint venture betweenPolyGram Filmed Entertainment andUniversal Pictures. Gramercy was the distributor of PolyGram films in the United States and Canada and also served as Universal's art-house division. After Seagram's buyout of PolyGram, Gramercy along withOctober Films andInterscope Communications^[1] were merged byBarry Diller to formUSA Films in 1999. On May 20, 2015, Focus Features (the current art-house division for Universal) revived the name as a label for action, horror and sci-fi genre films; the label was phased out after the release ofRatchet & Clank on April 29, 2016.

Gramercy Pictures

Company type	Label
Industry	Film
Founded	May 20, 1992; 32 years ago (May 20, 1992) (original) May 20, 2015; 9 years ago (May 20, 2015) (relaunch)
Defunct	1999; 26 years ago (1999) (original) 2016; 9 years ago (2016) (relaunch)
Fate	Merged withInterscope Communications andOctober Films to formUSA Films (original) Closed (relaunch)
Successor	Focus Features
Headquarters	Universal City,California , United States
Products	Motion pictures
Parent	PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (1992–1998) Universal Pictures (1992–1996, 1998–1999) Focus Features (2015–2016)

Gramercy Pictures was formed on May 20, 1992 as a joint venture between PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and Universal Pictures.^[2] Gramercy Pictures released its first film, theMario Van Peebles westernPosse, on May 14, 1993.^[3][4]

On January 11, 1996, PolyGram bought the 50% stake owned by Universal thus assuming full control of Gramercy.^[5] The distributor also had box office hits in 1994'sFour Weddings and a Funeral, 1996'sFargo and 1997'sBean. Several Gramercy releases of the 1990s have grown in stature to becomecult classics in the present day:The Big Lebowski,Dazed and Confused,Clay Pigeons andMallrats. In addition, 1995'sThe Usual Suspects won two Oscars, forBest Original Screenplay (Christopher McQuarrie) andBest Supporting Actor (Kevin Spacey).^{[citation needed]}

WhenSeagram acquiredPolyGram on May 22, 1998, PolyGram was merged and folded into Universal; as a result, it reacquired Gramercy as it controlled Universal. In turn, Seagram sold the bulk of the PolyGram film library titles released up until March 31, 1996 toMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1999, and later on, it sold Gramercy and two other specialty divisions,Interscope Communications andOctober Films, toBarry Diller'sUSA Networks, which merged all three companies into USA Films.^[6][7][1] USA Films was then merged with Universal's own art-house division, Universal Focus, and transformed intoFocus Features in 2002 afterVivendi Universal acquired USA Networks from Diller.^{[citation needed]}

On May 20, 2015,Focus Features announced that the Gramercy label has been revived to release action, horror and sci-fi genre films. Its first release wasInsidious: Chapter 3 on June 5, 2015.^[2] The revived label was later phased out following thebox-office failure ofRatchet & Clank (2016) and a shift from genre films byFocus Features.

Focus Features andUniversal Pictures own the distribution rights to Gramercy's films unless otherwise mentioned.