Touchstone and Beyond: What is Silver Screen Partners?
When the Walt Disney Company founded Touchstone Pictures to release adult-oriented films, they not only changed the type of films that Disney would make, they also changed the format of funding the production of their films.
This week, we look back at a staple of the early Touchstone Pictures films, Silver Screen Partners.
The Rundown
For anyone who has watched a Touchstone Pictures movie, you have no doubt seen the production label Silver Screen Partners. This company started its quest in Hollywood by working with HBO in 1983. Founded by Roland W. Betts, Silver Screen Partners would be a new source for film funding.
When 1984 rolled around, Silver Screen decided to venture out from cable television to theatrical productions. Signing up with Disney, Silver Screen would start funding films in 1985. Fresh from success with HBO, Silver Screen had revenue from twenty thousand limited partners. All told, they had close to two hundred million dollars to collaborate with the House of Mouse.
Silver Screen would have four iterations, all with large investment amounts that collaborated with Disney. Silver Screen II began in 1985, 1987 brought Silver Screen III, Silver Screen IV was established in 1990 to finance more films at Disney.
The Goal
This unique group of investors planned to share production costs and the profits. Silver Screen would reportedly share in the gross dollars in the theater and television markets. Investors would receive some form of profit, without worry of the budget being surpassed or if the movie was a dud at the box office.
What They Made
There are multiple films in the library that bear the name Silver Screen Partners, and Touchstone Pictures has many of its successes thanks to the deal with Silver Screen Partners.
Their notable hits from the collaboration, to name a few, include:
- Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend
- Down and Out in Beverly Hills
- Off Beat
- Ruthless People
- Ernest Goes to Camp
- The Color of Money
- Good Morning Vietnam
- Three Men and a Baby
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- Cocktail, Dead Poets Society
- Turner and Hooch
Why Disney Partnered with Silver Screen
For a company that was slowly coming to terms with the idea that they needed to change and grow, otherwise they would be swallowed up and bought by another company, Disney was feeble in their attempts to break the mold of what Walt Disney did.
Ron Miller can be credited with the creation of Touchstone Pictures and wanting to take film production in a new direction, but he never had the chance to share in the success that Touchstone would bring. When Eisner and Wells came in to run Disney in 1984, they believed in Touchstone and making adult-oriented films, but they were cautious about the financial risks.
After all, the company that made Cinderella and Swiss Family Robinson had no experience making R-rated movies. That is where Silver Screen Partners came in.
Eisner states in his book Work in Progress that “Frank and I shared the view that we needed to protect our financial downside even as we moved forward aggressively.” Eisner and Wells were eager, but they didn’t want to go broke.
To Eisner, “by raising financing from outside sources, our balance sheet could be protected.” This pragmatic and brilliant way to start the company in a new direction allowed Disney to take risks, with minimal risk. For Silver Screen Partners, they would risk money, and be handsomely rewarded when their bets paid off.
Why They Matter
The movies I listed above are some of the biggest hits of the 1980s and put Disney on a rebound after a stagnant 1970s. From trying to find their own identity and rereleasing their animated classics, the Walt Disney Company was going nowhere and fast in the moving pictures business of the 1980’s.
Having fended off a corporate takeover in the early portion of the 1980’s and then hiring Michael Eisner and Frank Wells as CEO and President, Disney needed to get their house in order, and this partnership with Silver Screen Partners was an unbelievable salve to the oozing wound of creativity that was sucking up time, space, and box office at Disney.
Besides the money that would be made, partnerships with directors like Robert Zemeckis, Martin Scorsese, Peter Weir, Paul Mazursky, and actors like Tom Cruise, Robin Williams, Paul Newman, and Tom Hanks are what drove the new wave of filmmaking that came out of the Walt Disney Company.
For a studio that was only known for the animated classics, and safe family friendly live action films, the 1980’s was a turning point for Disney in film. With Silver Screen Partners supporting the new approach towards movies, Disney was finally ready to grow.
So What Happened?
Silver Screen Partners would go on to finance movies in the 1990’s and would then reinvent themselves into the group Touchwood Pacific Partners, which would continue to finance movies with Disney.
The problem is that Disney has changed. Moviemaking has changed, and now, instead of taking risks with films, Disney and every other company is maximizing blockbuster potential with IP movies. Sure we get the occasional gem from Disney’s Searchlight Pictures, but we get more remakes, and rereleases then original material.
Disney is a long way from their brilliant run of creativity in the 1980’s and eons away from making a consistent run of adult-oriented films. Perhaps it is time for Disney to make some investor friends who want to get into the movie business. Who knows what could happen. After all, stranger things have led to great rewards.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the only live-action/animated film that brings Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny together on screen. Who co-financed this film? Silver Screen Partners!
Coming Soon
Touchstone and Beyond returns in two weeks with a new look, and a review of Geena Davis in Angie.