DISNEY reveals lay-offs with major MARVEL cuts…

Disney may be creating quite a stir with their presentations at Cinema-Con industry event, but this week the less impressive news was that around a1000 jobs would be cut across the company as part of a cost/efficiency decision.

New Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro (who replaced Bob Iger last month) wrote in a memo that: “Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney. Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs. As a result, we will be eliminating roles in some parts of the company and have begun notifying impacted employees…”

According to sources, Marvel – which Disney bought in 2009  – has been hit significantly by the decision with reports saying that 8% of the workforce has been cut and which will affect both coasts – Marvel Entertainment in New York and Marvel Studios in Burbank. Marvel is now more than a ‘mere’ comics company, with a studio that has produced and distributed some of the most successful movies of all time and bringing some of the most well-known superheroes from the printed page to the screen.

Even more specifically, the Visual Development team, the unit that is most closely associated with creating a practical, viable look for the screen versions of those Marvel characters over the last two decades, is reported to have been hit particularly hard in the move. One report in Forbes, the financial outlet, noted that it essentially wiped out ‘ the entire Academy Award-winning visual development team at Marvel Studios….‘

It appears that only a small core of staff remain and they will now co-ordinate hiring freelance and contract workers on a purely project-by-project basis.

Concept artist and illustrator Wesley Burt posted on Twitter/X  was told of the decision to let him go in a room which displayed the mural he created for the Loki series…

Industry site Bleeding Cool noted that amongst Marvel‘s departures in its comics division would be David Gabriel, who was the Senior Vice President for over two decades, Senior Editors Lauren Bisom (Marvel Zombies and Strange Tales), Devin Lewis (Moon Knight, Daredevil, 1776, Spirits Of Violence, Morbius and Punisher) and Darren Shan  (X-Men Outback, Moonstar, Magik and Colossus, Bishop, What If, Cyclops, X-Men 97, Psylocke, Jubilee, and the Age of Revelation titles) with Executive Director of Communications Timothy Cheng also being laid off. More were expected to be confirmed.

The last time that Disney made major lay-offs was in 2023, when the company announced plans to cut 7,000 jobs in an effort to save around $5.5bn in costs. Disney  apparently also plans to scale back its Marvel  film output overconcerns of so-called ‘superhero fatigue’ and the fear of over-saturating the cinematic schedules.

Its two main Marvel theatrical releases this year will be Spider-Man: Brand New Day which premieres in theaters on 31st July and Avengers: Doomsday arriving on 17th December.