Touchstone Pictures

related to club-a-size! Dad! Mum! Well, anyway.

Touchstone Pictures presents Jazzercise with Kat Fox.

Unrelated to

Jazzercise? Yeah, me and your mother, we had a thing going back in 88.

Now, Bruckheimer's company, as we talked about, we've talked about recently with National Treasure, uh, it was a...

They had kind of a deal with Disney and the, and the, and the kind of branches of Disney, so that'd be Touchstone, that'd be Hollywood Pictures.

Uh, Bruckheimer was not really known to do kids films and family films.

He was the action guy, and this feels like a little bit of a pivot for him, though he would continue on for the rest of the 2000s, where he, where Touchstone was, like, kinda phased out and Disney would come in.

So they read the script, but Disney passed on it.

And, uh, Chad Oman really believed in the script, and he tried to, like, kinda make a offer, a small offer to ch- to, to option it, but the, it was, they, uh, I guess Howard passed on it and they went to other studios for it.

And then later on, he's joined and partnered with his friend and co-runner, the guys that really built Disney when it was at a low point, Jeffrey Katzenberg.

And they came over, they created Touchstone Pictures, which the purpose of that was to reach out to older audiences without that stigma of the Disney kids name, right? Which doesn't matter as much today, but it did back then for sure.

Yeah, it totally did, and Touchstone movies could be rated R and often were, and they have survived, and there's some great films there that they put together.

Yeah, some award-winning classics for sure.

And then we'll get into our kind of thoughts, feelings and theories on the film.

But Splash, I'm very excited about Splash because this is the first ever Touchstone Pictures release.

The first one we've covered on the pod and the first release of overall and Touchstone Pictures is like a special interest of mine.

It was a new label created by Disney in the 80s to release films that were more for adult audiences, sort of free from the Disney brand, the sort of family-friendly brand.

And it's the type of films I feel like we don't make anymore, these kind of mid-budget picture, like date night movies.

And I just I really miss this era of cinema.

Mid budgets.

Yeah, I just remember even seeing the Touchstone Pictures title card.

So it's kind of like the start of that.

So former Touchstone executive Donald DeLine reportedly bought The Waterboy from Sandler's pitch while Sandler was still making The Wedding Singer.

So The Wedding Singer opened in February 98, was a huge success.

And The Waterboy was basically the movie that kind of demonstrated that Sandler could open up to a giant mainstream comedy.

Cause I thought maybe it's like a reverse captain Ron.

Because this was before Captain Ron, and I don't know what movie started it, but the kind of neon orange heavily used by Touchstone and Buena Vista Pictures and Cino Man, What About Bob? Wayne's World.

Yeah, like you put orange, bright orange on your title, you were making millions of dollars.

That's the rule.

But tell me, Eddie, is that a rabbit in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Touchstone Pictures and Steven Spielberg present a Robert Zemeckis film.

We toons may act idiotic, but we're not stupid.

Who Framed?

Once Burton had proved himself with mega hits like Beetlejuice and put the goth in Gotham in 1989's Batman, Disney was better able to understand this project.

It was released under the adult-friendly Touchstone label, as if to say, "This one's not for the princess crowd." The story rejects the typical Disney binary.

We have no clear heroes.

Monsters are sympathetic.

The score is in perfect sympathy with the plot, longing, overreach, and humility.

Jack doesn't change, he accepts.

When the Walt Disney Company realized they were bankrolling a musical animated ghost story about existential angst, they decided to sweep it away from their main brand and release it under the adult-facing banner, Touchstone Pictures.

Pre-publicity stepped away from admitting that the film was a musical, with the trailer not including any of the songs.

It really is.

So for those of you listening, we are looking at the birth, the explosive success, and the eventual very quiet death of Touchstone Pictures.

Yeah.

And going into the source material, you might assume this is just, you know, another story about the film industry.

They agreed to air 50 of their films.

Securing a multi-hundred million dollar influx of guaranteed revenue.

Flush with cash and confidence, Touchstone Films officially upgraded its corporate nomenclature, changing its name to Touchstone Pictures.

And this era of ruthless pragmatism didn't just stabilize a failing company.

I'll, I'll agree with Val on that.

I also wanna say that this movie makes me miss Touchstone Pictures-

Yeah

... which was such a big deal during this time of kind of w- when you were...