*Correction: "Signs" was actually Shyamalan's 5th (!) overall feature... and his 4th for the Disney company (including "Wide Awake" in 1998 for Miramax and "Unbreakable" in 2000 for Touchstone)
Another correction is that New Line Cinema was still its own separately run entity from Warner Bros. under Time-Warner until 2008. Thus, Warner Bros had no involvement in the development or production of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. That was all New Line, on their own, under the leadership of NLC founder Robert Shaye.
Still find it funny how The Nightmare Before Christmas was released as a touchstone film, but as soon as it became a cult classic (and thus more merchandisable) Disney reclaimed it
The first trailer for "National Treasure" indicated it was a Touchstone release. But when the MPAA gave the film a PG rating prior to opening, it suddenly became an official Walt Disney title.
8:52 "[Eisner's] corporate philosophy was that companies had to take chances and innovate to succeed." Precisely the two concepts that Disney no longer espouses.
Touchstone would be EXACTLY what Disney, or actually all Hollywood, desperately needs. Relatively cheaply made original productions, where it would be possible to actually strike gold. Not every movie of course, but if you can make 10+ of those for the price of a single Marvel-movie, you only need a hit once in a while to stay afloat. And since those other movies would generate some profit also, the hits would actually make it shine instead of just survive.
Bingo, this is EXACTLY it. It doesn’t matter if every movie is a hit or not if the company can keep production costs low enough in the first place, and that’s impossible with giant blockbusters from existing franchises. It’s getting ridiculous now reading about movies pulling in 100 million and still being referred to as a “failure”. Going back to the 80’s and 90’s, a small or mid-budget film could gross 20-40 million and be considered a success. Not to mention that when all Hollywood wants to do is focus on franchises, that means any and all creativity and originality goes out the window.
That's basically what A24 is. Though they focused almost 100% on dramas until recently, their massive success with Everything Everywhere All at Once seems to have galvanized them to move into other genres and more mainstream than pure art house. Multiple Oscars and their highest grossing film ever. Though the take is still small, 143 mill but on a budget of 25 mill. Most of their stuff has profits way lower. Risky business doesn't take many flops to sink the company.
@@steverogers8163 Yeah. A24 is the modern day Touchstone basically. And heck even like Touchstone, A24 is also branching out a bit with other production methods like animation. Heck they just released the animated series "Hazbin Hotel", their first ever animated production, on prime video half a year ago to huge critical and financial success. Things are going well for that little studio and their ventures.
Disney in the 80's: Let's create a label under Disney so that we can create pictures with more nudity, oriented to a more adult audience. Disney+ upon launch: Let's put Splash on and censor the hell out it. Replace shots so there are no more nipples, crop shots to hide her behind and cover it up with digital hair. To think Touchstone was founded for content like Splash and then censor it decades later is quite ironic and ridiculous. Thank god it has since been restored to it's original glory in 4K. (streaming only) These films need more love and respect in the form of 4k restorations and proper home media releases. They have the potential to shine and sell on the 4k UHD format.
That's the Disney way though they always wanted the adult content crowd but never willing to actually show anything adult themed. It was all family content all the time. I saw a lot of their films but not many in the theater even as a kid. Doesn't surprise me one bit they are censoring Splash they are not allow to show a straight couple holding hands let alone kissing in any production now because it isn't gay. Doesn't fit the message.
It's wild to me that some rich dude can just buy enough stock in a company to say, "Okay. Liquidate everything. Shut everything down. You're all fired." Even crazier that it almost happened to Disney.
if that wasn't true, then publicly listed companies wouldn't actually be owned by the shareholders (even though most shareholders don't buy stock for that purpose).
If culture is America's greatest export then you'd think there'd be more consideration for and protection of the industry. Still a problem today with the shrinking number of distribution companies.
Happens all the time - it's what private equity does. Toys R Us, Sears, Red Lobster are all famous examples. But they don't just liquidate, first they make the company take on a ton of debt which they pull out in some form or another (like bonuses). THEN they send the company through bankruptcy.
I do miss Touchstone a lot, especially now that modern Disney in general feels lost when it comes to their output. Barely anything comes out of 20th Studios that isn’t a franchise, and if they didn’t have so many Oscar hits like Nomadland and Poor Things, Searchlight would’ve definitely been on the chopping block. It’s so annoying that Disney keeps refusing to make real movies, instead this constant churn of IP based movies that feel void of personality and creativity. Something like Unbreakable or The Insider would never be greenlit by them today.
Unbreakable, what a good movie from Shayamalan, not a usual superhero movie, I liked Split but I've heard it was awful. 100% agree with you, I want to see them doing something original again.
Yeah. If anything one needs to look elsewhere for new original movie and TV productions that dare to give up and coming storytellers a shot with more vivid ideas. The best place for that these days is probably the studio A24, who by now are probably most well known for the movie "Everything, Everywhere, All at once" and the Animated TV series "Hazbin Hotel".
Its funny now how after the Hulu merger, Disney+ has all the typical kids classics alongside things like The Omen and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Here in Latin America Disney+ only has kid-friendly content, plus all of the Star Wars and Marvel ones, the more mature films and shows are available on a separate service called Star+, though they're meant to merge this month. Still, I was kind of surprised to see some Touchstone films like Splash in Disney+
By the time Disney started making attractions using star wars I felt that they already had the franchise in their hands. I got a little weirded out when they decided to make new star wars films, but i gave it a chance... And hated it. Disney star wars isn't star wars. 🤷🏻♂️
@@LinkMarioSamus Which they still haven't managed to do while they make all sorts of new mistakes. I've never been a fan and see the original trilogy the same way I do KISS - great _for its time_ - but even I feel bad for fans old enough to know a time before Disney-ification. I've watched my own beloved franchises be gutted for "modern audiences/preferences" in whatever capacity that means, like Final Fantasy becoming just another ADHD third person action game. It's like watching an old friend descend into chemical madness. And when you question, it's made abundantly clear it's fueled by huffing their own farts.
I’m still confused why the revived touchstone television was so short-lived… But yeah, touchstone deserves to be remembered, same goes for hollywood (disney’s other movie company).
It's still so weird to me to see Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis, and Treasure Planet being brought up as failures despite the fact that all three of those movies are absolutely beloved today. Though with the latter two it's understandable considering that Eisner was intentionally torpedo-ing the animation wing at Disney.
It's because the only metrics that the companies care about is box office sales. A great example is the game cube. Commercially it was a huge flop because the company barely made any money off the sales of the system and games. However it's a very popular system that produced many games people loved. Same with the Wii, Commercially it didn't make the company much money yet in the zidgist of our culture its remembered well
@@Shadowtiger2564the Nintendo Wii was gangbusters for the company, which is why they hesitated to innovate away from it in the first place. The switch design was first half assed with the release of the Wii U. The Wii was extremely popular and highly profitable per console sold.
@@dnasty312 Granted that has a lot to do with the erosion of ownership and shift to subscription models. Why sell you a movie once when we can bill you for the same or nearly the same price _every month?_
How different the 80's were. If you wanted to start a mid budget label for original stand alone adult films today, you would be laughed out of Hollywood. I miss that era. The Touchstone jingle was the sound of my childhood.
I never thought of Touchstone as a division of Disney or as an individual studio worth seeking out. It was just another company logo before the movie started.
Yep. That was the idea and they should have stuck to that. Now we got so much mud in the water on what is and isn't meant for families from Disney that the brand has no meaning other than cashed in, preachy remakes and sequels.
@@nalleinsowilo6268and what movie are you saying was good? Going by your logic McDonald's is the highest quality food out there because they made a lot of money off it.
For what it's worth, Eisner wasn't entirely to blame for refusing Lord of the Rings. It was actually the Weinsteins negotiating, as Miramax held the rights. What Eisner did refuse was Peter Jackson's request to film two consecutive films back to back, especially on such a high risk project. It was believed that Harvey Weinstein even suggested simply cutting the two films into one (which obviously would've gone badly). While Jackson did respond by fucking off when Robert Shaye decided New Line Cinema would do *the entire trilogy at once,* Miramax, and thus Disney, did negotiate a deal where they got a 5% cut of all LOtR profits, and Harvey and Bob Weinstein would still receive executive producer credits.
It would be funny if Weinstein wanted the two LOTR films merged into one (I wish they came to this agreement with The Hobbit), when he suggested Quentin Tarantino to cut Kill Bill into two films.
You know for a guy who liked his literature, it's quite bizzare that Eisner wasn't keen on splitting the adaptation of LOTR into two parts. And I don't blame Jackson for insisting on filming it back-to-back, especially when Ralph Bakshi got screwed when his backers refused to fund part 2 of his adaptation.
I think it was more the idea of spending so much money on something that wasn't a surefire bet for success was not something he wanted Disney to risk- and you could hardly blame him, most fantasies or adaptations that attempted to shoehorn fantasies in them failed and failed *miserably,* before AND after its release. And that Bakshi adaptation wasn't exactly the best first impression for film execs.
@@erics.czernecki7333 I get that Eisner didn't want to spend $150 Million on a Two-Part Fantasy Film by a director that was quite unknown in Hollywood at the time. However, he would likely known how popular The Lord of Rings Trilogy was compared to most fantasy novels and thus it's potential as a successful movie compared to most fantasy films. Heck, the Bakshi Adaptation (despite being half an adaptation & quite rushed in telling it's plot) was quite profitable at the box office. Funny enough; Eisner would later blame Harvey Weinstein's refusal to share details (about the project) for turning down the film in the first place. Honestly though, both deserve blame for Disney basically gifting the project to New Line Cinema.
I would imagine that Disney probably sees it that way. Now that Fox Searchlight is under their ownership, they likely see no need to have another "indie" studio like Touchstone. But unfortunately, due to all the mergers and buyouts as of late, that means there are less distributors releasing smaller films overall.
The Wells Eisner Katzeberg trio mid 80s to mid 90s era of Disney is my favorite in the company's history. Look at what was made, the sky was the limit. RIP Frank, you were the glue 😔
One would think that 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures should become the spiritual succesors of Touchstone, but it seems we only had glimpses of it with things like The Creator, in terms of original stuff. And for some reason they dropped distribution of The Bikeriders, which is now in the hands of Focus Features. Fortunately seems that Searchlight is in a good place with the success of Poor Things, and it seems that Yorgos next film could repeat the sucess.
The real reason they pulled off of Disney releasing the movie was because New Regency’s prior movie The Creator actually bombed at the worldwide box office, along with the dreaded SAG union strikes still taking shape then.
I remember Roger Rabbit being a BIG deal back in the day. That was a pretty darn good movie though. I love it more now than I did as a kid because I see how much effort and care were put into it.
Fun fact about The Black Hole, it was released on a same day as "Star Trek The Motion Picture", guess which was more popular? Reminds me of the story of how Alfred Hitchcock wanted to film a movie at Disney World and this was right after "Psycho" and Walt reportedly said "I don't want that filth in my park!"
I was a kid in the 4th grade that year and remember vividly the advertising on television and movie posters on buses and the subways. My friends and I were very excited about The Black Hole, but something about that first Star Trek picture made everyone think it would be dreary and boring. By the early '80s- Sci-Fi was more about "action" and less about "philosophy" re 2001 Space Odyssey.
Well, considering Disney bought out 20th Century Fox, why bother having just a little branding like Touchstone Pictures, when you now own an even bigger name where you can release non-family movies. Although, Disney doesn't seem to be sure what to do with Fox, and only now are they starting to make proper use of it, what with the huge success of Avatar: The Way of Water, and of course the upcoming Deadpool and Wolverine, which will be their first R-rated picture in the MCU. So, it looks like 20th Century Fox will basically become the new Touchstone Pictures for Disney
This is my first time watching your content. Touchstone was such an important part of my childhood as an 80s kid! This was an amazing little history lesson. I kept wondering "When is he going to mention" and you mentioned all of them that I could think of!! I totally liked it and subscribed!
I re-watched a couple of 80s Touchstone films. They play like TV movies with a bit of adult content. Still, would prefer that to another superhero movie loaded with CGI.
I honestly think that was their off ramp since the 80s was when cable TV became a mainstream option. If the movie sucked to much for theaters they could offload it onto cable TV to try and brake even. The rise of VHS becoming a 3rd option too. I've heard multiple directors/actors saying in interviews that they made movies relying entirely on the idea they would see profits from the VHS end of things and not the theatrical run. Both these options ended up spawning cult sleeper hits like "Shawshank Redemption" which bombed at the box office but VHS turned it into a movie classic, it was the #1 movie rental that year and is apparently still one of WB's most valuable titles for licensing.
Interesting to see that Disney was in a very similar position in the 80s that they are now, with all of their new movies flopping hard, and people generally thinking that they aren't capable of making anything good anymore.
@@jxchambWell, they bought Pixar in 2006 for a good reason, but even back in the 70s, 80s and 2000s, Disney had gems that grew on a lot of people's hearts.
My childhood was the late 1970s/early '80s and among my friends Disney was considered for toddlers. You would be ridiculed for having a Walt Disney lunchbox or Mickey Mouse on your clothes. Hanna Barbera and Warner bros. IP were considered more "edgy" among us 4th graders! LOL
You could argue that Disney are in a creative rut and face challenges making Streaming Profitable. However Disney itself ain't losing money as a whole, especially when their profits were $2.3 Billion in 2023. Likewise, apart from Amazon & Apple, virtually nobody could launch a full buyout of Disney itself. Which wasn't the case in the Mid-80s.
@@nalleinsowilo6268 they lost 2 billion on D+ alone, over a billion on 2 movie, wish and the marvels, their stock is constantly declining m, and universal studios outperformed Disney world for the first time ever. Their adherence to “the message” is bringing their downfall.
Disney tested the waters with the PG rating by releasing a movie called "Takedown" that starred Lorenzo Lamas and was about a high school wrestler. It was released prior to "The Black Hole" and was not produced by Walt Disney Studios but was released by their distribution arm Buena Vista Distribution.
Walt watching To Kill a Mockingbird: "I need to make important pictures under a different brandname." Touchstone Pictures: "OK we gotta movie about a Reno lounge singer who witnessed a murdere and needs to go undercover as...wait...a nun in San Francisco!"
While Disney might have made an unthinkable amount of money from its big franchises in recent years I feel like the cinema ecosystem needs labels like Touchstone, banging out original (if not always hugely profitable) films and investing in talent. It feels like the well of big budget franchise hits was always going to run dry eventually. They have nothing to fall back on.
I agree with you. It's a really strange time as there is a massive oversaturation of content. It's just too much, which causes little to truly be excited about. It's much less about quality then it is about using IP's to sustain subscription numbers at this point.
"The Black Hole" was in pre-production long before Star Wars. Originally billed as "Towering Inferno in Space," it spent 10 years being rewritten and changed, and was in post production when Star Wars was released, so GFFA had very little influence on the movie. The only reason "Emperor's New Groove" flopped was that Disney failed to put any advertising behind it. They also did a poor job of advertising Atlantis: Lost Empire and Treasure Planet.
Marvel themselves seem to be their movie's distributors, not for nothing they founded Marvel Studios back in the mid-2000s, the same thing with Star Wars and Lucasfilm. While Disney owns both Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm, it seems they are their own studios, separate from Walt Disney Pictures
I was thinking about touchstone the other day. I noticed they disappeared right around when movies first started the devastating decline were in today.particularly Disney.
Disney doesn't get enough credit for giving talented directors the free reign to make their wild passion project through Touchstone. It's unlikely we would have gotten to see movies like O Brother Where Art Thou?, Ed Wood, Apocalypto, Starship Troopers, or The Prestige without them. Great video!
This may sound weird or funny 😅 but as a movie geek kid in the ‘80s, Touchstone Pictures was my favorite studio. I loved their movies and always hoped to one day work with them. And we didn’t have Showtime - our cable carrier only had HBO and Cinemax, and it bummed me out that Touchstone releases only played on Showtime back then! 😆 Finally, thanks for the explanation of the name’s meaning. I thought it was for some reason named after the character from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”
It seems that Disney has constantly been pushing out movies no one asked for. I mean the only reason these bad movies were made is because the people working on them made money making them even if they flopped which is why we get so much bs today
Dude I was so happy when I realized Disney produced Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. Finally, my love of Disney and my love of Wes Anderson have intersected.
It seems like the kind of label that could make a return someday, especially if Marvel and Star Wars productions continue to under perform. The first Touchstone movie I ever saw was Ernest Goes to Camp. So I have always associated their logo and musical motif with that movie.
It’s interesting to look back at certain film and television studios that were once big, but are now gone. Seeing a film with the Touchstone logo is something that I remember quite a bit when I grew up in the 90s. It’s unfortunate it’s gone, but also not surprising either.
Disney sadly fell into the illusion that infinite growth is a thing, as it has happened to most public companies. Marvel Studios' current decline is mostly due to a mix of genre fatigue and their inexplicable ability to turn what had successfully streamlined the excessively beginner-hostile world of American serialised comics into yet another beginner-hostile medium (with new movies either requiring watching multiple seasons of paid TV to get or being expository info-dumps which end up being paid trailers for future movies, which is what doomed all of Warner Bros.' attempts to emulate Marvel Studios, ironically), but Disney's general downfall arguably originates the belief that they can just sit on their asses and spend increasingly more ludicrous sums of money on movies, because they've either convinced themselves that they're too big to fail, or that big investments = bigger profits, as they're so critically out of touch with reality that they don't understand that most people these days struggle to put food on the table, let alone go watch multiple movies multiple times per theatrical run in order to reach their insane projections. I do believe some of the struggles of the animation studios come from the way the public reacted to some of their experimentations - you've mentioned those four movies yourself: Fantasia 2000, The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis and Treasure Planet initially didn't catch on with most of the public due to not being the classic fairytale that people expected from them, and in Hollywood's "Only things that previously have succeeded can succeed" mentality, we can see the pipeline that led us to mediocre, unfinished movies like Frozen II and Wish.
This is a very solid video. As a "tween" in the 80s I remember just what a glut of mid-range movies Touchstone released (and a little later Hollywood Pictures, its sister company). This sort of film isn't really made any more.
Although it should’ve been less surprising, Disney’s biggest grossing solo movie was actually Pretty Woman, featuring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Hollywood Pictures’ biggest film release _was_ THE SIXTH SENSE after all. M. Night Shyamalan’s “second” film for Disney was actually Unbreakable followed by Signs and The Village.
Pretty Woman grossed $463 million WW under the Touchstone label, and The Sixth Sense grossed $672 million WW under Hollywood Pictures label. Both were distributed by Buena Vista (Disney), so The Sixth Sense was reported as being Disney's highest grossing live-action film worldwide up to that point.
Dang I was recommended this video out of the blue and after finishing it I was blown away by how small your channel is. The quality in your content definitely feels like it’s from a larger channel. You earned my sub today 😁✌️
I would like to thank Ron Miller for the absolutely wonderful films that were produced under his reign. Without him there would be no TRON, watcher in the woods, something wicked this way comes, black hole and the black cauldron. I love them all. Each one brilliant examples of taking risks with original scripts. Something that should be lauded. I’ll also suggest that The Black Cauldron would have made more money had Katzenburg not cut it to shreds.
Ah I miss that old logo...the good ol'days of movies. Those days are LONG dead and I have no hope in the future. But that's just my old man ways of thinking...I envy the young who are still full of positivity and enjoy life as it is today. I just don't know how to be like that anymore...I'm too bitter about everything. RIP 80's and 90's.
How is Disney not a monopoly? I thought we had monopoly laws in this country. No wonder they put out such awful movies these days and then insult the customers. They brought up all of the competition. It’s good to have competition because it keeps corporations on their toes and they know they have to make a better product than their competitors to stay in business. This explains everything. Thank you!!
No. Monopolies are terrible for the consumer. Once competition is eliminated, prices for their product go up and quality/ customer service goes down and innovation is curbed. It is a basic principle of economics.
Because they don’t own Warner Bros. Or Universal. Or Paramount. Or Sony Pictures. A company isn’t a monopoly just if it’s “BIG”. And it’s not a monopoly if it expands into other businesses. A company is a monopoly if it takes over a single industry. As long as other studios exist and function, they’re not a monopoly. Hollywood operates more like an oligopoly, in which a handful of big companies run everything. And maybe there should be anti-oligopoly laws (it would help other industries too. Like commercial air travel). But right now, they’re adhering to the law.
"He [Walt Disney] probably would not have made some of those films." Walt Disney probably would have thought Star Wars was too dirty. "He does WHAT to the kids?!? Oh, no, I don't think we want to buy THAT!"
Walt Disney Company actually refused to finance Star Wars back in the day, they also refused Back to the Future dud to the themes with Marty and his mom.
Seems like a similar thing is happening with them again now. They have such a tight control on the content they make that they seem to miss the mark with audiences. Lucas and Spielberg were rebels, and Disney doesn’t seem to trust that energy.
yeah but not a massive success. only 2x profits and #2 that year for the Buena Vista arm. Though I can easily imagine it made a ton more on the VHS/Cable TV market afterwards. Apparently there was/is a lawsuit about the profits from the movie.
I literally went decades without nightmares from seeing Watcher in the Woods when I was 8, and now you’ve gone and brought it up again! For crying out loud!
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was one of the most innovative and best films that Disney/Touchstone Pictures created. I've watched it many times over the years, and it amazes me how creative and great it still is. The blend of 2D-animated characters and living humans still hold up, and its messages about prejudice and overcoming it is strong and still resonate to this day. They didn't hammer anything or alienate audiences to get their point across, they had a neat innovative world where humans and cartoon characters coexisted, they had a great script and great characters, a flawed but relatable human protagonist whose cynical personality bounced off their less serious and more silly cartoon deuteragonist, they had a strong iconic female character, a terrifying villain, great music, and it became the best live-action/2D-animation hybrid film of all time and renewed the Disney Renaissance. It sucks that current Disney refuses to acknowledge its existence and its cultural significance, though I guess that's also kind of a good thing, since acknowledging its existence would probably give it the "live-action" remake treatment. What's worse is the knowledge that we know WFRR would not have been made today, which shows just how low Disney has become. The studio has become a shell of its former self and an example of how low empires can fall. R.I.P Touchstone Pictures.
1980s : Wanting to make new, innovative movies with under-utilized acting talent leads to massive success and growth. 2020s : Making the same old crap over and over with the same actors contributes to an industry-wide collapse. The moral of the story is, executives need more cocaine
Great video..👍 I was 19 in 1984 , and a serious once-a-week moviegoer for many years after that, so much so we simply got used to seeing the Touchstone Pictures logo a few times a month for years...😁
*Correction: "Signs" was actually Shyamalan's 5th (!) overall feature... and his 4th for the Disney company (including "Wide Awake" in 1998 for Miramax and "Unbreakable" in 2000 for Touchstone)
Please tell me the music you used at 17:21. I'm begging you, lol.
@@jimross3593sounds a lot like Van Halen's "Jump."
Thanks, I was just coming here to note the correction!
Another correction is that New Line Cinema was still its own separately run entity from Warner Bros. under Time-Warner until 2008. Thus, Warner Bros had no involvement in the development or production of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. That was all New Line, on their own, under the leadership of NLC founder Robert Shaye.
Would you consider doing a video on Hollywood Pictures?
Still find it funny how The Nightmare Before Christmas was released as a touchstone film, but as soon as it became a cult classic (and thus more merchandisable) Disney reclaimed it
😂😂😂😂. On me tho. It’s like Mike Jones iconic hit song line that goes,
“Back then they didn’t want me,
Now I’m hot they all on me.”
Well, even more now, Disney now owns Edward Scissorhands through the Fox acquissition.
The first trailer for "National Treasure" indicated it was a Touchstone release. But when the MPAA gave the film a PG rating prior to opening, it suddenly became an official Walt Disney title.
Take note, Mr. Mouse is playing for keeps.
I always thought I was crazy when I first saw The Disney logo over Nightmare Before Christmas.
That intro of Touchstone logo is just a nostalgia overload.
Hollwood Pictures logo intro has the same effect. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is one of my favorites.
Absolutely!!!
"Mature entertainment with Disney standards", back then this actually meant something.
As a child of the VHS era that intro gave me chills.
Same!
Saw it twice yesterday and both times was all..."awwww"
@@fuhqsideways sure bring back memories.
Back then I had no idea it was disney, and I knew it was going to me something a bit heavier than the usual kid's movie.
Facts also the tri star and f.h.e. are good ones too
8:52 "[Eisner's] corporate philosophy was that companies had to take chances and innovate to succeed."
Precisely the two concepts that Disney no longer espouses.
Iger is full of it
Now Disney believes in playing it safe by making crap they know no one is going to like.
@@user-li2yv5je5eAlmost every studio in Hollywood is playing it safe.
And Eisner usually has the reputation has being Disney's WORST CEO!
@@samfilmkid Nah, he was great other than the last few years. Iger is terrible and has never been any good.
Touchstone would be EXACTLY what Disney, or actually all Hollywood, desperately needs. Relatively cheaply made original productions, where it would be possible to actually strike gold. Not every movie of course, but if you can make 10+ of those for the price of a single Marvel-movie, you only need a hit once in a while to stay afloat. And since those other movies would generate some profit also, the hits would actually make it shine instead of just survive.
Bingo, this is EXACTLY it. It doesn’t matter if every movie is a hit or not if the company can keep production costs low enough in the first place, and that’s impossible with giant blockbusters from existing franchises. It’s getting ridiculous now reading about movies pulling in 100 million and still being referred to as a “failure”. Going back to the 80’s and 90’s, a small or mid-budget film could gross 20-40 million and be considered a success.
Not to mention that when all Hollywood wants to do is focus on franchises, that means any and all creativity and originality goes out the window.
Today Disney gets on its knees for ESG Score from BlackRock and their Funding. They care NOTHING for what we actually want to see, or care about.
That's basically what A24 is. Though they focused almost 100% on dramas until recently, their massive success with Everything Everywhere All at Once seems to have galvanized them to move into other genres and more mainstream than pure art house. Multiple Oscars and their highest grossing film ever. Though the take is still small, 143 mill but on a budget of 25 mill. Most of their stuff has profits way lower. Risky business doesn't take many flops to sink the company.
@@steverogers8163 Yeah. A24 is the modern day Touchstone basically. And heck even like Touchstone, A24 is also branching out a bit with other production methods like animation. Heck they just released the animated series "Hazbin Hotel", their first ever animated production, on prime video half a year ago to huge critical and financial success. Things are going well for that little studio and their ventures.
Disney in the 80's:
Let's create a label under Disney so that we can create pictures with more nudity, oriented to a more adult audience.
Disney+ upon launch:
Let's put Splash on and censor the hell out it. Replace shots so there are no more nipples, crop shots to hide her behind and cover it up with digital hair.
To think Touchstone was founded for content like Splash and then censor it decades later is quite ironic and ridiculous.
Thank god it has since been restored to it's original glory in 4K. (streaming only)
These films need more love and respect in the form of 4k restorations and proper home media releases. They have the potential to shine and sell on the 4k UHD format.
Let's censor it in United States while keeping it uncensored overseas in Australia and New Zealand.
Oriented, not orentated.
@@blaster-zy7xxNay nay! It’s orenentamentalized, sir!
That's the Disney way though they always wanted the adult content crowd but never willing to actually show anything adult themed. It was all family content all the time. I saw a lot of their films but not many in the theater even as a kid. Doesn't surprise me one bit they are censoring Splash they are not allow to show a straight couple holding hands let alone kissing in any production now because it isn't gay. Doesn't fit the message.
@@bartsullivan4866 You jumped the shark on the last two sentences. Turn off Fox News. It turns your brain to mush.
It's wild to me that some rich dude can just buy enough stock in a company to say, "Okay. Liquidate everything. Shut everything down. You're all fired." Even crazier that it almost happened to Disney.
It makes sense. You have the most invested in the company and are the most powerful player by virtue of that. What you say happens.
It's the fundamentally undemocratic nature of Capitalism. You're right, it's crazy.
if that wasn't true, then publicly listed companies wouldn't actually be owned by the shareholders (even though most shareholders don't buy stock for that purpose).
If culture is America's greatest export then you'd think there'd be more consideration for and protection of the industry. Still a problem today with the shrinking number of distribution companies.
Happens all the time - it's what private equity does. Toys R Us, Sears, Red Lobster are all famous examples. But they don't just liquidate, first they make the company take on a ton of debt which they pull out in some form or another (like bonuses). THEN they send the company through bankruptcy.
I do miss Touchstone a lot, especially now that modern Disney in general feels lost when it comes to their output. Barely anything comes out of 20th Studios that isn’t a franchise, and if they didn’t have so many Oscar hits like Nomadland and Poor Things, Searchlight would’ve definitely been on the chopping block. It’s so annoying that Disney keeps refusing to make real movies, instead this constant churn of IP based movies that feel void of personality and creativity. Something like Unbreakable or The Insider would never be greenlit by them today.
Unbreakable, what a good movie from Shayamalan, not a usual superhero movie, I liked Split but I've heard it was awful. 100% agree with you, I want to see them doing something original again.
@@jesustovar2549 Glass, where they combine Split and Unbreakable, is the one you’ve heard about being bad. Split revived M Night’s career
Dead Poets Society and Good Morning Vietnam were phenomenal to me when I saw them while in High School, and made me a life long fan of Robin Williams.
I grew up with Disney, now its completely dead to me.
Yeah. If anything one needs to look elsewhere for new original movie and TV productions that dare to give up and coming storytellers a shot with more vivid ideas. The best place for that these days is probably the studio A24, who by now are probably most well known for the movie "Everything, Everywhere, All at once" and the Animated TV series "Hazbin Hotel".
Its funny now how after the Hulu merger, Disney+ has all the typical kids classics alongside things like The Omen and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Here in Latin America Disney+ only has kid-friendly content, plus all of the Star Wars and Marvel ones, the more mature films and shows are available on a separate service called Star+, though they're meant to merge this month. Still, I was kind of surprised to see some Touchstone films like Splash in Disney+
Don’t get me wrong, I love always sunny, it’s probably the best sitcom on tv right now but yeah it doesn’t fit in on Disney+
They don't want kids to be children anymore in America.
They need them on tiktok half naked amped up on junk food
In Canada, we never had Hulu so the "adult" content was always on Disney+.
Thank you!!! It's so unorganized
What I learned from this video; Disney had been after Star wars for a very long time.
By the time Disney started making attractions using star wars I felt that they already had the franchise in their hands. I got a little weirded out when they decided to make new star wars films, but i gave it a chance... And hated it. Disney star wars isn't star wars. 🤷🏻♂️
@@PowerRangersFanAntiDinoFuryFor better or worse, it certainly doesn’t have the Lucas touch.
And in typical "careful what you wish for" fashion, didn't know what to do after obtaining it.
@@custos3249 Not beyond "don't be like George Lucas" at least.
@@LinkMarioSamus Which they still haven't managed to do while they make all sorts of new mistakes. I've never been a fan and see the original trilogy the same way I do KISS - great _for its time_ - but even I feel bad for fans old enough to know a time before Disney-ification. I've watched my own beloved franchises be gutted for "modern audiences/preferences" in whatever capacity that means, like Final Fantasy becoming just another ADHD third person action game. It's like watching an old friend descend into chemical madness. And when you question, it's made abundantly clear it's fueled by huffing their own farts.
I wish Disney pay Respect to Touchstone, by putting a Touchstone Tab on the Disney+ App.
And Hollywood, too.
I'd wish Disney would actually sell Touchstone to Jerry Bruckheimer.
I’m still confused why the revived touchstone television was so short-lived…
But yeah, touchstone deserves to be remembered, same goes for hollywood (disney’s other movie company).
Nothing stopping Disney from renaming the Star Tab to the Touchstone Tab instead.
@@MrSmith1984 star is only in India. Other than that, sounds like a genius move.
RIP
Touchstone Pictures
(1984-2016)
RIP
Walt Disney's Legacy
(1923-2019)
That touchstone was the intro to all the classics growing up in the 90s.
It's still so weird to me to see Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis, and Treasure Planet being brought up as failures despite the fact that all three of those movies are absolutely beloved today. Though with the latter two it's understandable considering that Eisner was intentionally torpedo-ing the animation wing at Disney.
Excluding Big Hero 6, animated Disney movies seem to bomb when they attempt SciFi.
@@mattwolf7698 Wall-E would beg to differ.
@@balsalmalberto8086 its pixar
It's because the only metrics that the companies care about is box office sales.
A great example is the game cube. Commercially it was a huge flop because the company barely made any money off the sales of the system and games.
However it's a very popular system that produced many games people loved.
Same with the Wii, Commercially it didn't make the company much money yet in the zidgist of our culture its remembered well
@@Shadowtiger2564the Nintendo Wii was gangbusters for the company, which is why they hesitated to innovate away from it in the first place. The switch design was first half assed with the release of the Wii U. The Wii was extremely popular and highly profitable per console sold.
The biggest issue with Touchstone’s death these days is the lack of respect for their library
Is that why I'm having a hard time finding the Blu-ray of _Father of the Bride I_ and _II?_
@@dnasty312 Its on Hulu and Disney+
@@dnasty312I don’t know what country you’re in but Father of the Bride 2 is on Disney+ in America.
@@thedukeofchutney468 That does not help with finding the Blu-Ray... in fact, it's counterproductive.
@@dnasty312 Granted that has a lot to do with the erosion of ownership and shift to subscription models. Why sell you a movie once when we can bill you for the same or nearly the same price _every month?_
How different the 80's were. If you wanted to start a mid budget label for original stand alone adult films today, you would be laughed out of Hollywood. I miss that era. The Touchstone jingle was the sound of my childhood.
I never thought of Touchstone as a division of Disney or as an individual studio worth seeking out. It was just another company logo before the movie started.
Yep. That was the idea and they should have stuck to that. Now we got so much mud in the water on what is and isn't meant for families from Disney that the brand has no meaning other than cashed in, preachy remakes and sequels.
"Can Disney make a good film anymore?"
And were right back at the beginning of the end again.
Disney had profit of 2.5 billion last year one of best years How much you made 😅
@@nalleinsowilo6268and what movie are you saying was good? Going by your logic McDonald's is the highest quality food out there because they made a lot of money off it.
I have no clue I don't watch movies or TV..Movie making is business, , job of studio is make money and turn a profit .
@@nalleinsowilo6268so you can see the confusion. Your comment has NOTHING to do with my comment.
@@tRav285 He's a dumbass.
For what it's worth, Eisner wasn't entirely to blame for refusing Lord of the Rings. It was actually the Weinsteins negotiating, as Miramax held the rights. What Eisner did refuse was Peter Jackson's request to film two consecutive films back to back, especially on such a high risk project. It was believed that Harvey Weinstein even suggested simply cutting the two films into one (which obviously would've gone badly). While Jackson did respond by fucking off when Robert Shaye decided New Line Cinema would do *the entire trilogy at once,* Miramax, and thus Disney, did negotiate a deal where they got a 5% cut of all LOtR profits, and Harvey and Bob Weinstein would still receive executive producer credits.
It would be funny if Weinstein wanted the two LOTR films merged into one (I wish they came to this agreement with The Hobbit), when he suggested Quentin Tarantino to cut Kill Bill into two films.
And thank god they did because there’s no way the films would have turned out as well as they did had Touchstone / Miramax been its producers.
You know for a guy who liked his literature, it's quite bizzare that Eisner wasn't keen on splitting the adaptation of LOTR into two parts.
And I don't blame Jackson for insisting on filming it back-to-back, especially when Ralph Bakshi got screwed when his backers refused to fund part 2 of his adaptation.
I think it was more the idea of spending so much money on something that wasn't a surefire bet for success was not something he wanted Disney to risk- and you could hardly blame him, most fantasies or adaptations that attempted to shoehorn fantasies in them failed and failed *miserably,* before AND after its release. And that Bakshi adaptation wasn't exactly the best first impression for film execs.
@@erics.czernecki7333
I get that Eisner didn't want to spend $150 Million on a Two-Part Fantasy Film by a director that was quite unknown in Hollywood at the time. However, he would likely known how popular The Lord of Rings Trilogy was compared to most fantasy novels and thus it's potential as a successful movie compared to most fantasy films.
Heck, the Bakshi Adaptation (despite being half an adaptation & quite rushed in telling it's plot) was quite profitable at the box office.
Funny enough; Eisner would later blame Harvey Weinstein's refusal to share details (about the project) for turning down the film in the first place. Honestly though, both deserve blame for Disney basically gifting the project to New Line Cinema.
One could argue that 20th Century Studios has taken the place of Touchstone for mature standalone films for Disney.
Except the fact it comes along with its own franchises primarily Alien and Predator.
@@RazorF157Right! And they got James Cameron’s _Avatar_ movies from their 20th Century Studios acquisition too,
I would imagine that Disney probably sees it that way. Now that Fox Searchlight is under their ownership, they likely see no need to have another "indie" studio like Touchstone. But unfortunately, due to all the mergers and buyouts as of late, that means there are less distributors releasing smaller films overall.
Actually, Dead Poets Society was the first Touchstone film to be nominated for Best Picture, not Quiz Show.
"Quiz Show" was created by Disney's Hollywood Pictures division, not Touchstone Pictures.
The way I worded that was confusing. "Quiz Show" was the first Hollywood Pictures film to be nominated for Best Picture.
The Wells Eisner Katzeberg trio mid 80s to mid 90s era of Disney is my favorite in the company's history. Look at what was made, the sky was the limit. RIP Frank, you were the glue 😔
Touchstone Pictures was totally ahead of time before that Disney Plus and Hulu bundle came out, years later lol.
One would think that 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures should become the spiritual succesors of Touchstone, but it seems we only had glimpses of it with things like The Creator, in terms of original stuff. And for some reason they dropped distribution of The Bikeriders, which is now in the hands of Focus Features.
Fortunately seems that Searchlight is in a good place with the success of Poor Things, and it seems that Yorgos next film could repeat the sucess.
I was wondering: "what happened with The Bikeriders?".
Wow! I totally missed that the _Bikeriders_ had changed distributors. Thanks. Considering how popular Austin Butler is now I wonder why it happened.
The real reason they pulled off of Disney releasing the movie was because New Regency’s prior movie The Creator actually bombed at the worldwide box office, along with the dreaded SAG union strikes still taking shape then.
They also delayed The Bikeriders from the December launch window within the interim.
I remember Roger Rabbit being a BIG deal back in the day. That was a pretty darn good movie though. I love it more now than I did as a kid because I see how much effort and care were put into it.
Fun fact about The Black Hole, it was released on a same day as "Star Trek The Motion Picture", guess which was more popular?
Reminds me of the story of how Alfred Hitchcock wanted to film a movie at Disney World and this was right after "Psycho" and Walt reportedly said "I don't want that filth in my park!"
He mentioned Star Trek in the video and compared the films' popularities.
And history along with victims' stories would reveal the irony of that statement
Yes, Walt only wanted HIS kind of filth in his park
As a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan, I never heard that story with Disney before😅
I was a kid in the 4th grade that year and remember vividly the advertising on television and movie posters on buses and the subways. My friends and I were very excited about The Black Hole, but something about that first Star Trek picture made everyone think it would be dreary and boring. By the early '80s- Sci-Fi was more about "action" and less about "philosophy" re 2001 Space Odyssey.
Well, considering Disney bought out 20th Century Fox, why bother having just a little branding like Touchstone Pictures, when you now own an even bigger name where you can release non-family movies. Although, Disney doesn't seem to be sure what to do with Fox, and only now are they starting to make proper use of it, what with the huge success of Avatar: The Way of Water, and of course the upcoming Deadpool and Wolverine, which will be their first R-rated picture in the MCU. So, it looks like 20th Century Fox will basically become the new Touchstone Pictures for Disney
Touchstone Century FOX
20th Century Touchstone
This is my first time watching your content.
Touchstone was such an important part of my childhood as an 80s kid! This was an amazing little history lesson. I kept wondering "When is he going to mention" and you mentioned all of them that I could think of!!
I totally liked it and subscribed!
Yeah this guy does his homework
I re-watched a couple of 80s Touchstone films. They play like TV movies with a bit of adult content. Still, would prefer that to another superhero movie loaded with CGI.
I honestly think that was their off ramp since the 80s was when cable TV became a mainstream option. If the movie sucked to much for theaters they could offload it onto cable TV to try and brake even. The rise of VHS becoming a 3rd option too. I've heard multiple directors/actors saying in interviews that they made movies relying entirely on the idea they would see profits from the VHS end of things and not the theatrical run. Both these options ended up spawning cult sleeper hits like "Shawshank Redemption" which bombed at the box office but VHS turned it into a movie classic, it was the #1 movie rental that year and is apparently still one of WB's most valuable titles for licensing.
Eisner era had the best business and creative concepts
It was only working because of Frank Wells. After he died, it went downhill.
Interesting to see that Disney was in a very similar position in the 80s that they are now, with all of their new movies flopping hard, and people generally thinking that they aren't capable of making anything good anymore.
For the longest time I thought Disney was still on top because I thought they owned Pixar.
@@jxchambWell, they bought Pixar in 2006 for a good reason, but even back in the 70s, 80s and 2000s, Disney had gems that grew on a lot of people's hearts.
My childhood was the late 1970s/early '80s and among my friends Disney was considered for toddlers. You would be ridiculed for having a Walt Disney lunchbox or Mickey Mouse on your clothes. Hanna Barbera and Warner bros. IP were considered more "edgy" among us 4th graders! LOL
That's hilarious, I feel being a kid in the early 2000s was very similar. It was all about Cartoon Network at my school!
The history of Disney and its peaks and valleys is a fascinating tale as old as time. Lol
In the past few years Disney would kill to only have losses of 30-50 million rather than the billions they’re currently losing.
You could argue that Disney are in a creative rut and face challenges making Streaming Profitable. However Disney itself ain't losing money as a whole, especially when their profits were $2.3 Billion in 2023.
Likewise, apart from Amazon & Apple, virtually nobody could launch a full buyout of Disney itself.
Which wasn't the case in the Mid-80s.
Disney profit in 2023 was 2 billion
@@nalleinsowilo6268 they lost 2 billion on D+ alone, over a billion on 2 movie, wish and the marvels, their stock is constantly declining m, and universal studios outperformed Disney world for the first time ever. Their adherence to “the message” is bringing their downfall.
Disney tested the waters with the PG rating by releasing a movie called "Takedown" that starred Lorenzo Lamas and was about a high school wrestler. It was released prior to "The Black Hole" and was not produced by Walt Disney Studios but was released by their distribution arm Buena Vista Distribution.
Walt watching To Kill a Mockingbird: "I need to make important pictures under a different brandname."
Touchstone Pictures: "OK we gotta movie about a Reno lounge singer who witnessed a murdere and needs to go undercover as...wait...a nun in San Francisco!"
While Disney might have made an unthinkable amount of money from its big franchises in recent years I feel like the cinema ecosystem needs labels like Touchstone, banging out original (if not always hugely profitable) films and investing in talent. It feels like the well of big budget franchise hits was always going to run dry eventually. They have nothing to fall back on.
I agree with you. It's a really strange time as there is a massive oversaturation of content. It's just too much, which causes little to truly be excited about.
It's much less about quality then it is about using IP's to sustain subscription numbers at this point.
We do have A24 at least.
"The Black Hole" was in pre-production long before Star Wars. Originally billed as "Towering Inferno in Space," it spent 10 years being rewritten and changed, and was in post production when Star Wars was released, so GFFA had very little influence on the movie.
The only reason "Emperor's New Groove" flopped was that Disney failed to put any advertising behind it. They also did a poor job of advertising Atlantis: Lost Empire and Treasure Planet.
ENG's trailer also bore little resemblance in tone to the film itself, if I recall correctly. I was shocked upon seeing it that I loved it.
@@j3kfd9j I went into ENG blind--knew nothing about it, other than that was what my friends wanted to see.
I wonder what it would have been like if Disney used the Touchstone label to release Marvel films.
In my opinion, that would've been a far better use for Touchstone Pictures if it was still around today.
I think Paramount should have kept the rights for the MCU.
Heh. If only they wouldn’t market that label so subtly like their DreamWorks deal.
@@nicholasvanzomeren7609 I think it would’ve been helpful for films like Ghost Rider or Punisher.
Marvel themselves seem to be their movie's distributors, not for nothing they founded Marvel Studios back in the mid-2000s, the same thing with Star Wars and Lucasfilm. While Disney owns both Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm, it seems they are their own studios, separate from Walt Disney Pictures
Touchstone made Ernest Goes To Camp, Ernest Saves Christmas, Ernest Goes To Jail, and Ernest Scared Stupid
So the best Ernest movies
Please, The Ernest Quadrilogy.
I never heard of these but I finally get the "Ernest Cuts The Cheese" joke from the Simpsons 😅
Oh how I love Jim Varney.❤
It was so sad when he died
I'm a huge fan of Touchstone, Miramax, Dimension, Hollywood Pictures, ABC, etc.!! I knew many of their media owned by Disney. 2000s for life!!
Me too.
This was really good! Hopefully you can do other studios like DreamWorks etc
🙌
I was thinking about touchstone the other day. I noticed they disappeared right around when movies first started the devastating decline were in today.particularly Disney.
Yay this channel isn't dead.
Touchstone on the other hand…
@@billyguy6645Disney is about to die too
Walt Disney on the other hand….
@@voidinteractive9308Walt…Walt never changes
Disney doesn't get enough credit for giving talented directors the free reign to make their wild passion project through Touchstone. It's unlikely we would have gotten to see movies like O Brother Where Art Thou?, Ed Wood, Apocalypto, Starship Troopers, or The Prestige without them. Great video!
This may sound weird or funny 😅 but as a movie geek kid in the ‘80s, Touchstone Pictures was my favorite studio. I loved their movies and always hoped to one day work with them. And we didn’t have Showtime - our cable carrier only had HBO and Cinemax, and it bummed me out that Touchstone releases only played on Showtime back then! 😆 Finally, thanks for the explanation of the name’s meaning. I thought it was for some reason named after the character from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”
It seems that Disney has constantly been pushing out movies no one asked for. I mean the only reason these bad movies were made is because the people working on them made money making them even if they flopped which is why we get so much bs today
Dude I was so happy when I realized Disney produced Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. Finally, my love of Disney and my love of Wes Anderson have intersected.
The Royal Tenebaums is good way to introduce Wes Anderson, very enjoyable family film, also you got Gene Hackman before he retired (I miss him).
@@jesustovar2549 One of the best actors of his generation. What is your favorite movie starring him?
It seems like the kind of label that could make a return someday, especially if Marvel and Star Wars productions continue to under perform. The first Touchstone movie I ever saw was Ernest Goes to Camp. So I have always associated their logo and musical motif with that movie.
It’s interesting to look back at certain film and television studios that were once big, but are now gone. Seeing a film with the Touchstone logo is something that I remember quite a bit when I grew up in the 90s. It’s unfortunate it’s gone, but also not surprising either.
Great vid, it's interesting how so often in the '90s, Touchstone was key to Disney's box office that year.
When I saw that logo I knew I was gonna see something good.
Disney sadly fell into the illusion that infinite growth is a thing, as it has happened to most public companies. Marvel Studios' current decline is mostly due to a mix of genre fatigue and their inexplicable ability to turn what had successfully streamlined the excessively beginner-hostile world of American serialised comics into yet another beginner-hostile medium (with new movies either requiring watching multiple seasons of paid TV to get or being expository info-dumps which end up being paid trailers for future movies, which is what doomed all of Warner Bros.' attempts to emulate Marvel Studios, ironically), but Disney's general downfall arguably originates the belief that they can just sit on their asses and spend increasingly more ludicrous sums of money on movies, because they've either convinced themselves that they're too big to fail, or that big investments = bigger profits, as they're so critically out of touch with reality that they don't understand that most people these days struggle to put food on the table, let alone go watch multiple movies multiple times per theatrical run in order to reach their insane projections.
I do believe some of the struggles of the animation studios come from the way the public reacted to some of their experimentations - you've mentioned those four movies yourself: Fantasia 2000, The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis and Treasure Planet initially didn't catch on with most of the public due to not being the classic fairytale that people expected from them, and in Hollywood's "Only things that previously have succeeded can succeed" mentality, we can see the pipeline that led us to mediocre, unfinished movies like Frozen II and Wish.
Changing the name of the production company isn't going to increase box office sales. Producing good, original, mid-budget movies will.
This is a very solid video. As a "tween" in the 80s I remember just what a glut of mid-range movies Touchstone released (and a little later Hollywood Pictures, its sister company). This sort of film isn't really made any more.
Although it should’ve been less surprising, Disney’s biggest grossing solo movie was actually Pretty Woman, featuring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Hollywood Pictures’ biggest film release _was_ THE SIXTH SENSE after all. M. Night Shyamalan’s “second” film for Disney was actually Unbreakable followed by Signs and The Village.
Pretty Woman grossed $463 million WW under the Touchstone label, and The Sixth Sense grossed $672 million WW under Hollywood Pictures label. Both were distributed by Buena Vista (Disney), so The Sixth Sense was reported as being Disney's highest grossing live-action film worldwide up to that point.
Dang I was recommended this video out of the blue and after finishing it I was blown away by how small your channel is. The quality in your content definitely feels like it’s from a larger channel. You earned my sub today 😁✌️
So did I. No other reason.
I would like to thank Ron Miller for the absolutely wonderful films that were produced under his reign. Without him there would be no TRON, watcher in the woods, something wicked this way comes, black hole and the black cauldron. I love them all. Each one brilliant examples of taking risks with original scripts. Something that should be lauded. I’ll also suggest that The Black Cauldron would have made more money had Katzenburg not cut it to shreds.
Let's not forget THE BLACK HOLE and THE NEW MICKEY MOUSE CLUB.
I’m sorry anyone who says Pinocchio is childish clearly hasn’t seen it. That movie is messed up.
Minor correction: Signs was M. Night Shyamalan's fifth film, not his second. His second film was 1998's Wide Awake.
That’s his overall backlog. But it’s actually Unbreakable being his second movie from there.*
*Being produced with Disney themselves however.
That was my bad, I've been trying to forget that Wide Awake exists 😵💫
@@channelserfer Lol, I get that.
Then there was Carolco and Columbia TriStar. Classics.
☝👍
Ah I miss that old logo...the good ol'days of movies. Those days are LONG dead and I have no hope in the future. But that's just my old man ways of thinking...I envy the young who are still full of positivity and enjoy life as it is today. I just don't know how to be like that anymore...I'm too bitter about everything. RIP 80's and 90's.
Lol rest assured that my generation is not what I’d call “full of positivity”
@@apollo1493 I'm doing my best to remain optimistic 😅
Touchstone gave us the first few Ernest movies and that's a win
I'm still broken up about Frank Wells.
👋
How is Disney not a monopoly? I thought we had monopoly laws in this country. No wonder they put out such awful movies these days and then insult the customers. They brought up all of the competition. It’s good to have competition because it keeps corporations on their toes and they know they have to make a better product than their competitors to stay in business. This explains everything. Thank you!!
I don't beleave we should have monopoly laws .Let company's make money
No. Monopolies are terrible for the consumer. Once competition is eliminated, prices for their product go up and quality/ customer service goes down and innovation is curbed. It is a basic principle of economics.
Cute
@@nalleinsowilo6268Microsoft being a big example too when they recently acquired ZeniMax and Activision Blizzard King.
Because they don’t own Warner Bros. Or Universal. Or Paramount. Or Sony Pictures. A company isn’t a monopoly just if it’s “BIG”. And it’s not a monopoly if it expands into other businesses. A company is a monopoly if it takes over a single industry. As long as other studios exist and function, they’re not a monopoly. Hollywood operates more like an oligopoly, in which a handful of big companies run everything. And maybe there should be anti-oligopoly laws (it would help other industries too. Like commercial air travel). But right now, they’re adhering to the law.
"He [Walt Disney] probably would not have made some of those films."
Walt Disney probably would have thought Star Wars was too dirty.
"He does WHAT to the kids?!? Oh, no, I don't think we want to buy THAT!"
Most likely would not want the muppets either "Those 'jokes' that they call them are immoral at every level".
Walt Disney Company actually refused to finance Star Wars back in the day, they also refused Back to the Future dud to the themes with Marty and his mom.
@@jesustovar2549 Actually why I used the phrase "too dirty."
Exactly what Disney execs said about Back to the Future. "Too dirty for Disney."
And Star Wars would've been *WAY* better off because of it... If only...
@@TitanKaiju75It would have sucked if Disney got it. ...and excluding The Mandalorian it did suck when they started controlling it 40 years later
Seems like a similar thing is happening with them again now. They have such a tight control on the content they make that they seem to miss the mark with audiences. Lucas and Spielberg were rebels, and Disney doesn’t seem to trust that energy.
I’m surprised that there was no mention of the criminally underrated movie “What About Bob?”. It is a comedy classic.
Baby steps... ;)
I love that movie
@@emmittmorgans8076 roses are red, violets are blue, I’m a schizophrenic, and so am I. 😂
yeah but not a massive success. only 2x profits and #2 that year for the Buena Vista arm. Though I can easily imagine it made a ton more on the VHS/Cable TV market afterwards. Apparently there was/is a lawsuit about the profits from the movie.
I've been waiting so long. Worth the wait!
I literally went decades without nightmares from seeing Watcher in the Woods when I was 8, and now you’ve gone and brought it up again! For crying out loud!
Something wicked this way comes is soooo underrated I love that one I wasn’t born when it came out but it’s such a great autumn movie
You can't make a fortune if your goal is making profits, you have to focus on content, quality, innovation.
See also: The Shareholder Value Myth by Lynn Stout. Contrary to widespread belief, there is no legal obligation to maximize profits.
this video was really well done, would love to see more content like this. I'm gonna subscribe, looking forward to what you'll share next
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was one of the most innovative and best films that Disney/Touchstone Pictures created. I've watched it many times over the years, and it amazes me how creative and great it still is. The blend of 2D-animated characters and living humans still hold up, and its messages about prejudice and overcoming it is strong and still resonate to this day. They didn't hammer anything or alienate audiences to get their point across, they had a neat innovative world where humans and cartoon characters coexisted, they had a great script and great characters, a flawed but relatable human protagonist whose cynical personality bounced off their less serious and more silly cartoon deuteragonist, they had a strong iconic female character, a terrifying villain, great music, and it became the best live-action/2D-animation hybrid film of all time and renewed the Disney Renaissance.
It sucks that current Disney refuses to acknowledge its existence and its cultural significance, though I guess that's also kind of a good thing, since acknowledging its existence would probably give it the "live-action" remake treatment. What's worse is the knowledge that we know WFRR would not have been made today, which shows just how low Disney has become. The studio has become a shell of its former self and an example of how low empires can fall.
R.I.P Touchstone Pictures.
I'd say that Vivziepop did what Disney should've done.
🤟
Goodbye Touchstone Logo!
Well put together video. Thanks for the upload!
Incredible breakdown, buddy. Thank you for your work :) Fist bumps from Canada
Good to see you back! Love this video man we still got to collab soon.
In 2023 they’ve lost close to $1 billion if not more. Now they’re promoting extreme R-rated movies like Deadpool
Gotta say this is a fantastic video man- subbed! Keep up the good work
Great video. Really enjoyed it. First one I've seen from this channel
1980s : Wanting to make new, innovative movies with under-utilized acting talent leads to massive success and growth. 2020s : Making the same old crap over and over with the same actors contributes to an industry-wide collapse. The moral of the story is, executives need more cocaine
4:00 What movie is this hell scene from?
I love how the dated special effects give it an even more off-putting vibe.
The Devil and Max Devlin
You'll never guess who plays the devil in that movie lmao
@@Charon.1 Talk about great casting! LOL!
Awesome vid. Just discovered this channel and I’m glad that I did.
I wasn't ready for the amount of info. Props.
Oh God the second that music sting hit. I miss renting tapes on the weekend, man.
Everybody say it with me “ COME ON DISNEY GIVE TOUCHSTONE TO JERRY BUCKHEMER!!!!”
After his racist movie no lol
@@TheStarBotwhat are you talking about?
@@dnasty312 The White Prince of Persia or Beverly Hills Chihuahuas?
@@Tacom4ster The Lone Ranger
@@TheStarBot I love how the person you replied to gave two options, but there was a third one they forgot about lol
The Lone Ranger was baaaaaaaad
Great video..👍
I was 19 in 1984 , and a serious once-a-week moviegoer for many years after that, so much so we simply got used to seeing the Touchstone Pictures logo a few times a month for years...😁
WOW! GREAT VIDEO! I REALLY ENJOYED IT. THANK YOU 😊
Solid video - got me to subscribe!
That's another way of saying "F It The old Man is not here so It doesn't matter we are doing it."
2:48 aged like a good wine
Keep going , this is my childhood. I really enjoyed the memories
This is fantastic.
Three men and a baby was a remake of the french movie "Three Men and a Cradle".
Absolutely fascinating. Thanks so much for this
@channelserfer I still watch your Fox Family video avidly!!! Glad to see you're back.
Maybe you should talk about Amblimation next. It's actually rather intriguing if you look into it
Don't be afraid to do the death of Orion Pictures, also.
Seconded! I would love to see a doc about Orion.