Gramercy Pictures returns as a genre label, starting with Insidious 3

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Wishing to keep their name associated with their arthouse releases, Focus Features has decided to bring back the Gramercy Pictures name as their own genre label, through which they'll release the action, horror, and sci-fi films they have in development.

Ironically, Gramercy Pictures has itself been an arthouse division in the past. The brand first came about in 1992 as a joint venture of PolyGram and Universal, with films released during the PolyGram/Universal partnership including KALIFORNIA, DAZED AND CONFUSED, and SHALLOW GRAVE. Gramercy has taken a long and winding road to get to this point, and TheWrap maps it out:

In January 1996, PolyGram brought the 50 percent stake owned by Universal and assumed full control of Gramercy. Universal's then-parent company Seagram acquired PolyGram in 1999. It then sold Gramercy and another specialty division, October Films, to Barry Diller's USA Networks, and merged both companies into USA Films, which transformed into Focus Features in 2002.

The first film set to be released through the reborn Gramercy is INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3, which will reach theatres on June 5th. The rest of the label's current line-up consists of:

SELF/LESS (July 10)

SINISTER 2 (August 21)

LONDON HAS FALLEN (October 2)

THE FOREST (January 8, 2016)

RATCHET & CLANK (April 29)

The creation of a label dedicated to churning out genre fare is always good news to me, and I'm the type of viewer who will sometimes seek out movies simply because they were released as part of a certain brand. (Dimension Extreme? Yep, watched 'em.) The initial line-up seems solid and I'm eager to see what horrors Gramercy will bring us in the future.