Touchstone Pictures
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| Label | |
| Industry | Film |
| Founded | February 15, 1984 |
| Founder | Ron W. Miller |
| Headquarters | Burbank, California, United States |
| Services | Motion pictures, distribution |
| Parent |
The Walt Disney Studios (The Walt Disney Company) |
| Website | waltdisneystudios |
Touchstone Pictures is an American film distribution label of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Previously, Touchstone operated as an active film production banner of Walt Disney Studios, owned by The Walt Disney Company. Established on February 15, 1984 by then-Disney CEO Ron W. Miller as Touchstone Films, it typically releases films targeted to adult audiences with more mature themes and darker tones than those released under the Disney name.
Touchstone Pictures merely serves as a brand, not a distinct business operation, and does not exist as a separate company.
In 2009, Disney entered into a 5-year, 30-picture distribution deal with DreamWorks Pictures by which DreamWorks' productions would be released through the Touchstone banner. Touchstone then distributed DreamWorks' films from 2011 to 2016.
Due to increased public assumption that Disney films were aimed at children and families, films produced by the Walt Disney Productions began to falter at the box office as a result. In late 1979, Disney Productions released The Black Hole, a science-fiction movie that was the studio's first production to receive a PG rating (the company, however, had already distributed via Buena Vista Distribution its first PG-rated film, Take Down almost a year before the release of The Black Hole).
Over the next few years, Disney experimented with more PG-rated fare, such as the 1981 film Condorman. With Disney's 1982 slate of PG-rated films—including the horror-mystery The Watcher in the Woods, the thriller drama Night Crossing, and the science-fiction film Tron—the company lost over $27 million. Tron was considered a potential Star Wars-level success film by the film division. A loss of $33 million was registered by the film division in 1983 with the majority resulting from Something Wicked This Way Comes, a horror-fantasy adaptation of Ray Bradbury's novel. Never Cry Wolf, a 1983 PG release that featured male nudity did well as the studio downplayed the film's association with the Disney brand.
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