Gramercy Pictures

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, the Mario Van Peebles western Posse, 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's Four Weddings and a Funeral, 1996's Fargo and 1997's Bean. Several Gramercy releases of the 1990s have grown in stature to become cult classics in the present day: The Big Lebowski, Dazed and Confused, Clay Pigeons and Mallrats. In addition, 1995's The Usual Suspects won two Oscars, for Best Original Screenplay (Christopher McQuarrie) and Best Supporting Actor (Kevin Spacey).^{[citation needed]}

When Seagram acquired PolyGram 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 to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1999, and later on, it sold Gramercy and two other specialty divisions, Interscope Communications and October Films, to Barry Diller's USA 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 into Focus Features in 2002 after Vivendi Universal acquired USA Networks from Diller.^{[citation needed]}

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