10. Orion Pictures To Return After 15 Years
Anyone who grew up watching movies in the 1980s and '90s will recognize the iconic Orion Pictures logo. It played in front of such beloved films as The Terminator, Caddyshack, Robocop, First Blood, Three Amigos, Silence of the Lambs, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Platoon, Dances with Wolves, and more. The company declared bankruptcy in 1991, was briefly resurrected in 1996, and then quietly integrated into MGM. Now, Orion is staging a comeback, according to Variety, and for the first time in 15 years, their logo will play in front of a film. The film in question is The Town That Dreaded Sundown, a small horror flick directed by American Horror Story's Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. The story about Orion's resurrection is a bit complex, but Variety breaks it down as follows:
MGM brought back the Orion label as a television brand in 2013, which is currently used on syndicated court show Paternity Court. With no staff assigned to the label, MGM intends to use the venerable indie name Orion as an international brand for smaller releases on VOD and limited theatrical. Town is released under BH Tilt, a recently-created multiplatform label from Blumhouse Productions. MGM does not have any specific future plans for the Orion Pictures name.
So, their heyday may be far behind them, but it's still cool to see that Orion lives on somewhere else than just in the hearts of those of us who grew up in movie stores (and if you're asking what a movie store is... just skip on ahead to the next story).