Gramercy Pictures: Difference between revisions

Background: Gramercy Pictures was founded in May 1992 as a joint venture between PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and Universal Pictures; at the time Universal and MCA were owned by Panasonic Corporation. The name of the company is derived from its parent companies, though it could also be a reference to Gramercy Park in New York City. Gramercy served as PolyGram Filmed Entertainment's US theatrical distributor and as Universal's art-house division. The Seagram Company would sell half of the studio to PolyGram on January 11, 1996, thus Gramercy became fully owned by the latter. When Seagram (then parent owner of Universal) bought PolyGram, they acquired Gramercy, but sold it (along with October Films) to Barry Diller's USA Networks (which Seagram owned a partial stake in), who renamed the combined operations USA Films (now "Focus Features"). In May 2015, Focus Features revived Gramercy for genre films; the label went dormant after the release of Ratchet & Clank (probably due to the movie's critical and commercial failure).

Availability: The original version is uncommon. Appears on Gramercy films from the era, including Dazed and Confused, Grace of My Heart, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, Mallrats, U.S. theatrical prints of Double Dragon (It's intact on the MCA/Universal VHS, but removed from most home media releases, though it's also intact on Amazon Prime Video print; might also be on the recent Blu-Ray by MVD Visual), and Commandments, among others. The Gramercy/PolyGram combo is preserved on MGM prints of Dream Lover, Posse, A Home of Our Own, Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh, Romeo Is Bleeding, Canadian Bacon, and Dead Man Walking. In the case of PolyGram films, the print logo appears on VHS/DVD covers of some of their films. It is supposedly intact on some streaming prints of Fargo. It is unknown if this appears on any prints of Steven Soderbergh's King of the Hill (1993). The enhanced version is extremely rare. It can be found on the VHS of Going All the Way. The still version can be found on several USA PolyGram trailers from the time, such as Bean, The Big Lebowski, Elizabeth, The Last Days of Disco, and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, among others. Don't expect to see this on most PolyGram features released after September 12, 1997, as most releases will plaster it with the Universal logo, while earlier releases will use international prints which have the PolyGram Filmed Entertainment logo; The Last Days of Disco is an exception, as earlier releases retain this and the Castle Rock Entertainment logo which follows. Current prints of said film however plaster the combo with the Focus Features logo.