5 ms·

Disney begins third round of expected layoffs, cutting more than 2,500 jobs

40 points by MDWolinski 3y ago

ameminator 3y ago
I always saw Disney as a sort of "cultural center" of the country. The more Disney has become disconnected from the cultural zeitgeist, inevitably its products would become less valuable. We've seen this from Star Wars, Marvel, ESPN and other properties. The legal trouble in the state of Florida is another problem on top of "quality issues" in their brands. We'll see if Disney can turn it around, but the last 5 years have really been tough on the company.
- somedude895 3y ago
  Disney used to be a brand known for creating magical experiences for children and adults alike. You turn that into a factory churning out mediocre content in large volumes and jump on a moral bandwagon that appeals only to a minority of activists and your brand loses its magic very quickly.
  - jackomelon 3y ago
    Can you elaborate on what you’re referring to? Specifically the “moral bandwagon” part.
    - londgine 3y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_v._DeSantis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_v._DeSantis You can start with this. Every article is biased, so read a few from both sides if you want the full picture.
  - hourago 3y ago
    > and jump on a moral bandwagon that appeals only to a minority of activists Disney includes minorities because it pays off, what does not pay off is to create bad/mediocre movies. There are many movies even more progressive than the very conservative Disney that do better just because the movies are good.
    - stuckinhell 3y ago
      I don't think it paid off. Their latest movies are taking huge losses across all brands. They are closing their parks and buildings. They are continuing more rounds of layoffs.
      - Retric 3y ago
        Disney is designed to extract maximum value from its properties and has always done so. The long string of sub par Remakes of classic films alongside Marvel and Star Wars is exactly the same things as their long line of direct to video sequels to more popular films. Cash grabs like “The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea” or “The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning” have always been part of the formula because on average their profitable. There isn’t long term damage to the brand because they are so forgettable. Give it 25 years and Disney can cycle a new generation through the next set of major Star Wars (etc) films as people will have forgotten about their flops and only recall their favorites fondly. Meanwhile hundreds of millions more will have gone to their parks which make a billion dollars per year in profits. It’s crazy how wildly successful those things are.
        stuckinhell 3y ago
        Sorry that doesn't pass the smell test. Corporations are run by people and can absolutely be mismanaged to death. If they are so profitable why are they cutting so many jobs at the parks and other places? Why are they closing down the 300 million Star Wars hotel without trying to even salvage it ? Why was Bob Chapek forced out and Bob Iger return ? It's clear something negative is occurring at Disney that has spooked the executives to point they are saying things like they need to "right" the ship for all major franchises and cutting costs at the parks.
        Retric 3y ago
        Corporate speak, you can look at their profits yourself. The company is largely flat since 2016 (ignoring the pandemic), but still the most profitable it’s ever been. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/gross-p... Buying Pixar, Marvel, and Starwars was a great investment, but it’s a giant old profitable company. You simply don’t see exponential growth at this point and their’s not that much IP available to buy at that scale. So, now the question becomes what’s going to be good value for money with their giant war chest?
  - two_handfuls 3y ago
    > jump on a moral bandwagon that appeals only to a minority of activists Are you referring to their mild criticism (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/disney-ceo-bob-chapek-florida-dont-say-gay-bill-response-1235105879/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/dis...) of the state of Florida’s crusade against LGBT ?
  - hedora 3y ago
    I don’t think the moral bandwagon really has anything to do with it, to be honest. They keep firing or abusing the talent, and the people left over make poor decisions. For instance, Disney+ launched without any content that would appeal to parents, then went all puritanical on Daryl Hannah’s butt. In top of that, it was a middle-of-the-road offering for the under 10 crowd. I’m not really sure who that product was supposed to appeal to. Maybe teenage boys like watching angsty superhero dramas? Roughly partitioning kids cartoons from a gen-x / millennial perspective, we have: - loony tunes (thankfully torrents still exist) - Disney movies up to and including Beauty and the Beast (Most of the above are somewhat culturally dated, but more kid appropriate than, say, adult swim) - Pixar up to the Disney acquisition and third party American animation. - Kid’s Anime - Whatever garbage Disney produced more recently (yes, there are a half dozen exceptions, but it is almost all direct to DVD or mediocre theater releases, and I am too busy to sift through the large library of “meh”). Disney+ is still missing third party and anime. At launch, it was missing a bunch of older Disney and Pixar stuff. The remaining category in my list is “mostly crap, with a few gems”. Hell, even HBO+ has more/higher-quality kid-friendly content. Corporate ethics for the two companies in recent years have both been dismal from a red and blue perspective. I wish we’d go back to having reasonable copyright expiration windows, so that there was some ethical and also legal means to procure movies for the kids.
- wdb 3y ago
  It’s quite suspicious that they are firing 2.500 people now while also said they wouldn’t move 2.000 people to Florida. Might be related
  - riotnrrd 3y ago
    It's not related. The Florida move was to be Imagineering; these layoffs do not touch that group.
- AzzieElbab 3y ago
  Avatar has done well despite its very tiring messaging. It feels like other Disney ventures are simply drowning in incompetence and irrelevance.
- stuckinhell 3y ago
  I'm truly shocked what happened to the Star Wars brand. The closing of the Star Wars Hotel a 300 million dollar investment is crazy to hear. The cultural center of the country and the corporate and academic elite seem to be moving further apart.
  - raisedbyninjas 3y ago
    If J.J. Abrams is included in the layoffs, maybe they can turn a corner.
  - jrpt 3y ago
    The Star Wars Hotel was a bad product. They could’ve just made it a normal hotel themed as a Star Wars ship, price it say 20% more than a normal hotel, and it would’ve done well. Instead it was some crazy cruise ship type experience (and price) that people didn’t really want.
ruffrey 3y ago
I wonder how many contractors they have cut, and if these numbers include any. When I worked in tech at Disney, the number of contractors was quite high. All new people would work minimum 2 years as a contractor. Then move to a new contract within Disney, or get converted to FTE.
- brianwawok 3y ago
  Contractors almost never count as a layoff.

40 points by MDWolinski 3y ago

I always saw Disney as a sort of "cultural center" of the country. The more Disney has become disconnected from the cultural zeitgeist, inevitably its products would become less valuable. We've seen this from Star Wars, Marvel, ESPN and other properties. The legal trouble in the state of Florida is another problem on top of "quality issues" in their brands. We'll see if Disney can turn it around, but the last 5 years have really been tough on the company.

somedude895 3y ago
Disney used to be a brand known for creating magical experiences for children and adults alike. You turn that into a factory churning out mediocre content in large volumes and jump on a moral bandwagon that appeals only to a minority of activists and your brand loses its magic very quickly.
- jackomelon 3y ago
  Can you elaborate on what you’re referring to? Specifically the “moral bandwagon” part.
  - londgine 3y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_v._DeSantis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_v._DeSantis You can start with this. Every article is biased, so read a few from both sides if you want the full picture.
- hourago 3y ago
  > and jump on a moral bandwagon that appeals only to a minority of activists Disney includes minorities because it pays off, what does not pay off is to create bad/mediocre movies. There are many movies even more progressive than the very conservative Disney that do better just because the movies are good.
  - stuckinhell 3y ago
    I don't think it paid off. Their latest movies are taking huge losses across all brands. They are closing their parks and buildings. They are continuing more rounds of layoffs.
    - Retric 3y ago
      Disney is designed to extract maximum value from its properties and has always done so. The long string of sub par Remakes of classic films alongside Marvel and Star Wars is exactly the same things as their long line of direct to video sequels to more popular films. Cash grabs like “The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea” or “The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning” have always been part of the formula because on average their profitable. There isn’t long term damage to the brand because they are so forgettable. Give it 25 years and Disney can cycle a new generation through the next set of major Star Wars (etc) films as people will have forgotten about their flops and only recall their favorites fondly. Meanwhile hundreds of millions more will have gone to their parks which make a billion dollars per year in profits. It’s crazy how wildly successful those things are.
      - stuckinhell 3y ago
        Sorry that doesn't pass the smell test. Corporations are run by people and can absolutely be mismanaged to death. If they are so profitable why are they cutting so many jobs at the parks and other places? Why are they closing down the 300 million Star Wars hotel without trying to even salvage it ? Why was Bob Chapek forced out and Bob Iger return ? It's clear something negative is occurring at Disney that has spooked the executives to point they are saying things like they need to "right" the ship for all major franchises and cutting costs at the parks.
        Retric 3y ago
        Corporate speak, you can look at their profits yourself. The company is largely flat since 2016 (ignoring the pandemic), but still the most profitable it’s ever been. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/gross-p... Buying Pixar, Marvel, and Starwars was a great investment, but it’s a giant old profitable company. You simply don’t see exponential growth at this point and their’s not that much IP available to buy at that scale. So, now the question becomes what’s going to be good value for money with their giant war chest?
- two_handfuls 3y ago
  > jump on a moral bandwagon that appeals only to a minority of activists Are you referring to their mild criticism (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/disney-ceo-bob-chapek-florida-dont-say-gay-bill-response-1235105879/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/dis...) of the state of Florida’s crusade against LGBT ?
- hedora 3y ago
  I don’t think the moral bandwagon really has anything to do with it, to be honest. They keep firing or abusing the talent, and the people left over make poor decisions. For instance, Disney+ launched without any content that would appeal to parents, then went all puritanical on Daryl Hannah’s butt. In top of that, it was a middle-of-the-road offering for the under 10 crowd. I’m not really sure who that product was supposed to appeal to. Maybe teenage boys like watching angsty superhero dramas? Roughly partitioning kids cartoons from a gen-x / millennial perspective, we have: - loony tunes (thankfully torrents still exist) - Disney movies up to and including Beauty and the Beast (Most of the above are somewhat culturally dated, but more kid appropriate than, say, adult swim) - Pixar up to the Disney acquisition and third party American animation. - Kid’s Anime - Whatever garbage Disney produced more recently (yes, there are a half dozen exceptions, but it is almost all direct to DVD or mediocre theater releases, and I am too busy to sift through the large library of “meh”). Disney+ is still missing third party and anime. At launch, it was missing a bunch of older Disney and Pixar stuff. The remaining category in my list is “mostly crap, with a few gems”. Hell, even HBO+ has more/higher-quality kid-friendly content. Corporate ethics for the two companies in recent years have both been dismal from a red and blue perspective. I wish we’d go back to having reasonable copyright expiration windows, so that there was some ethical and also legal means to procure movies for the kids.
wdb 3y ago
It’s quite suspicious that they are firing 2.500 people now while also said they wouldn’t move 2.000 people to Florida. Might be related
- riotnrrd 3y ago
  It's not related. The Florida move was to be Imagineering; these layoffs do not touch that group.
AzzieElbab 3y ago
Avatar has done well despite its very tiring messaging. It feels like other Disney ventures are simply drowning in incompetence and irrelevance.
stuckinhell 3y ago
I'm truly shocked what happened to the Star Wars brand. The closing of the Star Wars Hotel a 300 million dollar investment is crazy to hear. The cultural center of the country and the corporate and academic elite seem to be moving further apart.
- raisedbyninjas 3y ago
  If J.J. Abrams is included in the layoffs, maybe they can turn a corner.
- jrpt 3y ago
  The Star Wars Hotel was a bad product. They could’ve just made it a normal hotel themed as a Star Wars ship, price it say 20% more than a normal hotel, and it would’ve done well. Instead it was some crazy cruise ship type experience (and price) that people didn’t really want.

ruffrey 3y ago

I wonder how many contractors they have cut, and if these numbers include any. When I worked in tech at Disney, the number of contractors was quite high. All new people would work minimum 2 years as a contractor. Then move to a new contract within Disney, or get converted to FTE.

brianwawok 3y ago
Contractors almost never count as a layoff.