Subsidiary | |
Industry | Film |
Founded | 2002 |
Headquarters | Universal City, California, United States |
Products | Motion pictures |
Owner | Comcast |
Parent |
Universal Filmed Entertainment Group (NBCUniversal) |
Divisions | Focus World |
Subsidiaries |
Gramercy Pictures High Top Releasing |
Website | focusfeatures |
Focus Features is an American film production and distribution company, owned by Comcast through the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Focus Features distributes independent and foreign films in the United States and internationally.
Focus Features was formed from the 2002 divisional merger of USA Films, Universal Focus and Good Machine. USA Films was created by Barry Diller in 1999 when he purchased October Films and Gramercy Pictures from Seagram and merged the two units together.
Focus' most successful release in North America to date is Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned $83 million at the North American box office. However, this is not counting the domestic total of Traffic (2000), which earned $124.1 million under the USA Films banner. Focus' most successful international release is Burn After Reading (2008), which earned $163.7 million in worldwide gross revenue. The animated film Coraline (which Focus did not produce, but did distribute) was also highly profitable for the company. Although suffering its share of unsuccessful releases, Focus has been consistently profitable, and its international sales arm (unusual among studio specialty film divisions) allows it to receive the foreign as well as domestic revenues from its releases. Its DVD and movie rights revenues are boosted by cult classics including Wet Hot American Summer.
In May 2015, Gramercy Pictures was revived by Focus as a genre label, that was on action, sci-fi, and horror films.