Touchstone Pictures: Difference between revisions

Touchstone Pictures (formerly "Touchstone Films") was established by [[Walt Disney Pictures|The Walt Disney Company]] in 1983 to produce and distribute more adult-oriented films, before which the name was used in promotional materials for the Disney-branded ''Tex''. The company is merely a brand, and doesn't operate as a separate company. The company became a dominant force between its establishment in the 1980s to the early 2000s, making several successful films such as ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', ''Three Men and a Baby'', ''Adventures in Babysitting'', ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'', ''The Color of Money'', and many more films. However, the company suffered a halt in 2009, when two blows were dealt to the company. First, the then-new Disney chairman Rich Ross trimmed the number of films Disney released in a year to eight. This business plan resulted in planned sequels for Touchstone hits being cancelled, and many more flops to come for Disney in general (he left after the failures of ''John Carter'' and ''Mars Needs Moms''); the last Touchstone film released solo, without distributing for others, was ''You Again''. Meanwhile, Disney eventually stopped producing adult-oriented but family-friendly films after ''Old Dogs'' flopped with critics (though it did reasonably well at the box office). After all this, Touchstone began merely distributing films for [[Lucasfilm Ltd.|Lucasfilm]], [[Miramax Films|Miramax]], and [[DreamWorks Pictures|DreamWorks]], as well as foreign films and titles Disney had no faith in. It didn't help either that Disney beginning was releasing their Marvel and Star Wars under the respective Marvel Studios and Lucisfilm brands.  Their output was even more slow after the critical and commercial failure of ''Strange Magic'', with them only distributing ''Bridge of Spies'' and ''The Light Between Oceans'' since then. As Disney's deal with DreamWorks expired (since they went back to [[Universal Pictures]] for distribution) and they eventually acquired [[20th Century Studios|20th Century Fox]] in 2019, Touchstone now appears to be dormant. Its last release, ''The Light Between Oceans'', came out in September 2016, and while the 2019 film ''Glass'' was rumored to be released by Touchstone outside of the United States, it was instead released under the revived [[Buena Vista International]] label.