Iger says Disney layoffs start this week

I know that they're saying cuts across the enterprise, but it sounds like they will not be super widespread in parks, which have a ton of open positions that they're still trying to hire for. They definitely want to streamline, but not hinder the money printing machine.

They need to slow down down spending on junk Star Wars and Marvel content.

I think all streamers have issues with this. They have to keep creating content to keep those subscribers up and happy. But the quality suffers the more you make of something.

Not sure I follow on the content. Other than the Mandalorian, which is awesome, there really hasn't been much of anything in either category.

I'll give Mandalorian props for looking great, but is short on story and acting. And wasn't there also a series about Kenobi? I mean, I agree with the general idea that too much content can saturate the brand and the quality can certainly suffer...and I think specifically in Star Wars' case, that's exactly what happened (I really haven't liked much since the original trilogy).

Marvel, on the other hand...well, I probably can't speak about much produced since The Avengers series, which I was pretty tired of by the 17th film.

Joking aside, Marvel does well with quality for the most part. I just experienced massive burnout on superhero movies overall. Can't figure out why.

Anecdotally, we originally subscribed to Disney+ because my wife wanted to see Hamilton. We canceled after one year since no one was really using it. I'd struggled through season 2 of The Mandalorian and it definitely wasn't enough to keep my interest further. My kids will be 17 and 13 this July, too, so that's likely got a lot to do with it.

I watch a ton of NatGeo stuff, and then the new Star Wars and Marvel things that are way more spread out than they used to be. It's less than the cost of a burrito, so even if I saw one movie a month it'd be worth it to me.

It'll be interesting to see what they do with Hulu. Some stuff is already appearing on Disney+. But if they combine the two, they have to charge more, or you have Six Flags Worlds of Adventure (brought it back home!).

Jeff:

Not sure I follow on the content. Other than the Mandalorian, which is awesome, there really hasn't been much of anything in either category.

There was a Boba Fett series and Obi Wan series which were both pretty average.

plus a few others I haven’t bothered to watch like the animated stuff

Marvel has become too much of a good thing as well. Too much product and most of it average as of late. It’s product just for products sake and to keep making set release dates. Gotta keep feeding the masses I guess

There were 3 other live action Star Wars series and a couple of animated ones.

Boba Fett, which was basically Mando season 2.5, Obi Wan, and Andor.

I would like more Andors and Lokis and less Boba Fetts and Moon Knights.

Boba Fett was meh until it turned into Mando 2.5, yes. I didn't mind Moon Knight. Loved Ms. Marvel. But yeah, Andor was so good.

I still think even if 50% is epic film quality, I'm more than satisfied.

Ms Marvel was great. I liked Hawkeye a lot too.

Sucks.

Wow, Ms Marvel was garbage and Moon Knight was glorious. Agree to disagree, we shall. Andor was fantastic too.
That being said the point of the topic is the layoffs. Do the parks employ that many? 7000 is a lot but I guess I’ve never thought about it. Is that all global operations or just the American parks?

The 7000 layoffs are across the company. The speculation is that very few are parks jobs, despite the fact that the bloggers want you to believe that they’re making kids in Mickey costumes walk in to the Seven Seas Lagoon wearing concrete shoes.

bigboy:

The 7000 layoffs are across the company. The speculation is that very few are parks jobs, despite the fact that the bloggers want you to believe that they’re making kids in Mickey costumes walk in to the Seven Seas Lagoon wearing concrete shoes.

My concern would be if they lay off too many workers the park guest experience would suffer. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

Disney has 220,000 employees, only ~77,000 of which work in Orlando. Remember, they own ABC, ESPN, several movie studios, two streaming networks, etc.

Also, last week's Mandalorian had a flashback where Grogu remembers getting rescued from Coruscant during Order 66 (end of Ep. 3). The actor playing the Jedi that rescued him, doing some dual-wielding bad-assery, was none other than Ahmed Best, the one who played the insufferable Jar Jar Binks. That feels like professional redemption.

bjames:

Wow, Ms Marvel was garbage

Why do you think so? It was a classic coming of age story with brilliant art direction. And a Bollywood dance scene.

Vater:

Marvel, on the other hand...well, I probably can't speak about much produced since The Avengers series, which I was pretty tired of by the 17th film.

Vater in a way I must concur with you. The last Marvel Movie I watched was Wakanda Forever. First off, I will say if you havent seen that one, you should. (spoiler alert)..... The tribute to Chadwick Boseman will leave you in tears. But beyond that, I have not rushed out to Multiverse of Madness or Quantamania. And thats part in parcel of Disney trying to do too much. In order to fully understand the last Dr. Strange, Ive been told I need to watch Wandavision. Well I tried to sit through the first episode and was utterly bored. The same thing happened with Loki, which apparently will help you understand Ant-Man/Wasp a bit better. And while Im aware that these all tie into the Kang Dynasty in 2025, I think Disney would have been better off leaving their television series and MCU untangled. That way, those who want to watch one but not necessarily the other would be free to do so.

Oh....And did anyone else that nowhere in Iger's letter did he mention any financial compensation or severance to the employees theyre releasing ?!?!? In the immortal words of Cuba Gooding Jr. "SHOW ME THE MONEY!"

Wandavision will do that to you in the first few episodes. There's a lot of setup, but I assure you it gets really good. I have to think that a lot of people quit watching after the first couple episodes, we did in our house and picked it up again much later and we all ended up enjoying it.

Loki is also a great series. WandaVision and Loki are the best series Marvel has made. Most of Marvels post game output has been disappointing though. We’ll see how GotG3 is, remember that was the movie that was supposed to start phase 4 (before the Gunn controversy) and the early buzz was it was the best script he had ever written.

Weird. WandaVision had the opposite effect on me. I was intrigued by the bizarreness of the first couple episodes enough to ride it out, but the climax and ending was completely forgettable. Seriously, I already forgot how it ended, mostly.

I dunno, it's all well and good...I like that Marvel has had incredible success (my dad was employed by them for most of his career), but the oversaturation of the characters and stories is just a reminder that I've never been a comic book fan (which is funny to say because I never felt you had to be a comic book fan to enjoy the movies). There have been characters that I've liked since childhood and it was really cool to see them come to life when the movies were all about the origin stories, but now I guess the novelty has worn off and the silver screen and small screen adaptations are just mirroring the comic book series plotlines that I never really had any interest in. Again, total burnout.

My absolute favorite Marvel movie is Into the Spider-Verse. It was just so incredibly original and well done. But the cynic (realist?) in me is ready to be underwhelmed by the sequel, and further expecting the idea to be run into the ground, if it isn't already. I get it, it's a business and successful movies breed sequels which hemmorhage cash, but sometimes I wish Hollywood could just leave a single stellar movie alone to stand on its own. And that includes not remaking it 10-20 years later because they've run out of original ideas again.