Disney layoffs hit artists

Disney began laying off about 1,000 employees this week, and Marvel Studios lost nearly its entire visual development team. (apnews.com) Disney chief executive Josh D’Amaro told employees on April 14 that the cuts were part of a plan to “streamline” operations after Disney created a unified marketing and brand organization in January. Variety reported the layoffs span studios, television networks, Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, product and technology, and corporate groups. (variety.com) At Marvel, Deadline reported layoffs in New York and Burbank across film and television production, comics, franchise, finance, legal, and visual development. The outlet said about 8% of Marvel’s workforce was cut, and the studio kept only a small team to hire artists on a project-by-project basis. (deadline.com) Visual development is the early design work that sets a movie’s look before cameras roll. Forbes reported the group included illustrators, character designers, environment designers, and other specialists who shaped Marvel films and series from “The Avengers” to “Daredevil.” (forbes.com) The “Academy Award-winning” label attached to the team refers to Marvel’s work on “Black Panther,” which won Oscars for production design, costume design, and original score in 2019. Marvel said at the time that “Black Panther” was the studio’s first Oscar winner. (marvel.com) Forbes reported many of the affected artists had been at Marvel for a decade or more, and some are expected to move from full-time jobs to contractor roles tied to individual projects. That shift matches Deadline’s report that Marvel plans to rely more on outside hires for visual development work going forward. (forbes.com) The layoffs landed as Marvel has already slowed its release schedule after Disney spent the past two years cutting costs and reducing output. Forbes said people familiar with the cuts tied the visual-development layoffs to Disney’s broader cost reductions and Marvel’s smaller production slate, not to artificial intelligence. (forbes.com) D’Amaro told employees the cuts were “not a reflection of their contributions” but part of a broader effort to build a “more agile and technologically-enabled workforce.” Disney reported about 231,000 full- and part-time employees as of September 2025, making this round of layoffs a small share of its total staff but a deep cut for a specialized Marvel unit. (variety.com) The immediate result is that one of Marvel’s most established in-house art teams is being replaced, in large part, by a smaller core staff and freelancers. That is why the layoffs drew such a sharp reaction from artists online: the cuts hit the people who decide what Marvel worlds, costumes, and characters look like before production begins. (deadline.com)