When the new CEO took office, he first slashed at layoffs, but the first blow was directed at the "old hen" that used to lay golden eggs - Marvel. In fact, Marvel's decline did not happen overnight. The most typical one is to blindly increase production and kill the goose to obtain the eggs. Marvel once launched four theatrical movies and four streaming series a year, with new content released every few weeks on average. This is a disastrous decision. The intertwined plots between dramas and movies require viewers to complete so-called homework, otherwise they will be lost in the next theatrical movie. This compulsory viewing burden directly leads to the loss of a large number of ordinary viewers.
Article | "Silicon Valley Observer" Zheng Jun
Of course, this is just one of the multiple crises. How did Marvel Studios go from Disney’s star cash cow to its most disappointing division in just a few short years?
Marvel has become the hardest hit area by layoffs
Disney finally has a new CEO. Three and a half years after legendary CEO Bob Iger returned, he has finally chosen his successor - Josh D’Amaro, president of the Disney Experience Division, who is responsible for the Disneyland business. Iger will continue to serve as a director and senior advisor to Disney until his retirement at the end of this year.
What’s interesting is that the new CEO is from the head of Disney’s experience department. In 2020, Iger chose D'Amaro's predecessor, Bob Chapek, to succeed him. As a result, he was forced to step down after just two years due to a decline in performance and stock price. After the Disney board of directors fired Chapek in an emergency, they once again asked Iger, who had retired, to put out the fire.
But like Chapek, Damaro is also an operational executive with a background in theme parks and has limited direct experience in the film, television and streaming media businesses. This also explains why when Iger chose him to take over, he also appointed entertainment veteran Dana Walden as president and chief creative officer, specifically in charge of the film and television business.
The first thing Damaro did when he took office was to lay off employees. Two weeks ago, Damaro sent an internal memo to all employees, announcing that the company would cut about 1,000 positions on the grounds that it would streamline operations and create a more agile technical team. This is his first stab after taking office.
The layoffs are not surprising. During Iger’s return, he had already gone through multiple reorganizations and cut about 8,000 positions to cope with the challenges faced by Hollywood as a whole: declining box office revenue and declining linear TV audiences. But Damaro struck the hardest blow at Marvel Studios.
In this layoff, about 8% of Marvel's employees were laid off, affecting two offices in Burbank, California and New York, covering multiple departments such as film and television production, comics, franchises, finance and legal. The most harmed among them is Marvel Studios’ iconic visual development team.
This team, which was almost completely abolished, is the core force responsible for the unity of the visual style of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: character designers, environment designers, special effects artists, from "Avengers" to "Guardians of the Galaxy", the visual language of all worldviews was created by them.
After the layoffs, Marvel will retain only a few full-time employees as coordinators, and future visual development work will shift to a model of hiring outsourced contract workers on a project-by-project basis. Disney CFO Hugh Johnston subsequently stated that the company is transitioning to a culture of efficiency and does not rule out the possibility of further layoffs in the future.
This means that the internal team that has been working at Marvel for more than ten years, those professionals who are familiar with the historical evolution of each character and ensure visual coherence, will disappear as a collective from the daily operations of this brand.
Many former Marvel employees and actors have publicly spoken out on social media, criticizing Disney’s short-sighted decision-making, believing that it is destroying Marvel’s core competitiveness. Evangeline Lilly as Wasp in Marvel movies Lilly even publicly denounced Disney as "disgusting and shameful", "You have turned your back on those who built you the power you have today, and now you are using this power to abandon them. You should be ashamed!"TAGPH1 2
Marvel has gone from a money printing machine to the biggest crotch maker
Obviously, Damaro’s use of Marvel is approved by Iger. In fact, Iger has been dissatisfied with the Marvel department for a long time. In the past two years, he has repeatedly criticized Marvel Studios' works and performance in the past few years in public. This time, D'Amaro was asked to slash Marvel. Perhaps Iger intended to let his successor come to power.
Why did Marvel Studios, once a cash cow for Disney, become a worthless asset in just a few years? The demise of Marvel will undoubtedly make all movie fans sigh.
2019 is undoubtedly the peak year of Marvel Studios. That year, Marvel released three movies, all of which exceeded the US$1 billion mark, and the total box office exceeded US$5 billion. "Avengers: Endgame" swept the global movie box office with an unstoppable trend, and finally set a new box office record of US$2.798 billion.
If the box office decline during the epidemic is excusable, then after the epidemic is over, it seems that Marvel will no longer be able to find the appeal it had before. The few box office hits are almost all resting on its previous laurels.
2023's "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" proved that Marvel still has appeal with a global box office of US$845 million, but this is the final film of James Gunn's trilogy and relies on the emotional capital accumulated over ten years.
In the same year, "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum of Madness" only grossed US$476 million at the box office and was regarded as a major failure by the industry; "Captain Marvel 2" ended dismally with the lowest box office of a Marvel movie in history at US$206 million, with losses estimated to be as high as US$273 million.
In 2024, Marvel released only one theatrical movie, "Deadpool and Wolverine," which earned US$1.3 billion thanks to the nostalgic effect of Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, making it the highest-grossing restricted movie in film history. But this is essentially a brand loan, relying on the audience emotions accumulated during the X-Men era, rather than Marvel's own ability to create new IP.
The report card for 2025 is even more shocking. Neither "Captain America: Brave New World" nor "Thunderbolt" made it into the top ten at the global box office. "Fantastic Four: The First Step" became Marvel's highest box office hit in 2025 with US$521 million, but at its peak, this number was only a passing mark for a middling Marvel movie. This is the first year that Marvel has not had a single movie in the top 10 at the global box office.
The box office failure is not surprising, because the reputation of these movies has almost collapsed, and the Rotten Tomatoes score has become the most intuitive record of Marvel's decline. "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum of Madness" was rated only 46% by professional film critics, falling below the "fresh" passing line and becoming the lowest-rated theatrical movie in Marvel history at the time. "Captain America: Brave New World" received a score of 48% from film critics, which was also labeled "rotten" and set the lowest CinemaScore rating of B- for a Marvel theatrical movie. This means that even the core fans who rushed into the theater on the opening night were hardly satisfied.
It is worth noting that the audience ratings of these films are generally higher than those of critics - "Brave New World" has an audience score of 80% - but this split itself also illustrates the problem: die-hard fans are still defending the brand, while ordinary audiences have already voted with their feet and left the theater.
The only exception is "Thunderbolt". Before the film was released, the film critics' score was as high as 88%. It was the Marvel movie with the best reputation in the fifth stage. It proved that Marvel had not completely lost its creative ability, but the outstanding reputation still failed to translate into ideal box office. The audience's trust crisis has reached a level that even the reputation is difficult to repair.
Triple Roots of Marvel’s Decline
Marvel’s decline did not happen overnight. It was the result of the long-term superposition of triple crises.
The first is to blindly increase production and kill the goose to get the eggs. Around 2021, Disney under the management of Chapek positioned Marvel as the traffic engine of the streaming media platform Disney+, significantly expanding production capacity. At its peak, Marvel released four theatrical movies and four streaming series a year, with new content coming out every few weeks on average. This is a disastrous decision.
The charm of the Marvel Universe was originally based on carefully designed narrative rhythms. Each film is a carefully planned event that audiences have time to look forward to and discuss. But the forced increase in production and the intensive bombing pattern broke the rhythm of this work. Before the audience has had time to form an emotional investment in the new characters, the next installment is already online.
What’s even more fatal is that the intertwined plots between the series and the movie require the audience to complete the so-called homework, otherwise they will be lost in the next theatrical movie. This mandatory viewing burden directly led to the loss of a large number of ordinary viewers.
Secondly, the Marvel creative team seems obsessed with their values narrative. In Marvel's movies at their peak, values and diverse narratives were the result of the natural growth of the stories - the African cultural identity of "Black Panther" and the civilian heroism of "Spider-Man". The audience was moved by the characters first and inspired by the theme second.
But in Marvel after 2021, the creative logic has been inverted: first determine the social issues that need to be conveyed, and then build the story around it. Every character has a mission to complete and every plot line delivers a message. The characters lose their organic vitality and the story becomes a didactic vehicle. This putting the cart before the horse is the deepest reason for the collapse of Marvel's reputation.
2021’s “Eternals” is the most typical case. Ten new characters appear simultaneously, each representing a different identity - a deaf hero, a Latino, a South Asian. The character makeup itself is like a diversity checklist. All character depth is sacrificed to "representation." As a result, the movie scored 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it Marvel's first truly bad movie and setting their lowest score in history.
2022’s “She-Hulk” breaks the fourth wall and becomes a didactic platform. The series directly used the protagonist's words to criticize the audience's gender bias and stereotypes of superheroes, and even had She-Hulk break into Marvel headquarters at the end to "revise the plot." The creator wrote his dissatisfaction with the audience directly into the script, and the audience was naturally disgusted.
In "Captain Marvel 2", the characters serve the mission rather than the story. The combination of the three female heroes is generally considered to be out of diversity considerations rather than narrative needs. The chemical reactions between the characters are reluctant and the plot logic is confusing. 206 million US dollars became the lowest box office in Marvel history.
"Secret Invasion" was supposed to be Marvel's most mature political thriller, but it devoted a lot of space to immigration metaphors and identity issues, resulting in a slow pace and ultimately even core fans didn't buy it. In "Thor: Love and Thunder," his own character arc became comically out of focus. Fans generally thought this was a serious waste of the Thor character.
Finally, while Marvel's production is soaring and its reputation is booming, it seems that it can't even do the special effects that it is famous for. The cost of capacity expansion is the overuse of visual effects. The number of projects Marvel is working on at the same time far exceeds the normal level in the industry, while special effects budgets are being driven down and time windows are constantly being compressed.
According to industry insiders, special effects studios accept orders at low profits or even losses. Artists work overtime and repeatedly modify shots near the release. The large distorted CGI images in "Ant-Man 3" made the audience laugh, and the special effects in the opening credits of "Secret Invasion" were ridiculed as "not worth fifty cents." This is not because the special effects team is incompetent, but because the entire assembly line is overwhelmed.
One detail is enough to illustrate the problem: when "Doctor Strange" premiered in some overseas markets in 2016, the special effects of some scenes had not yet been completed. Marvel's directorial authority has been diluted by the opinions of layers of producers and executives, and pixel-level intervention has become a joke in the industry for Marvel's working methods.
In contrast, Pixar’s problem is more of a forced strategic mistake: Disney+ forced it to abandon theaters. Once back on track, the creative gene is still there. The global box office of "Inside Out 2" in 2024 reached US$1.699 billion, becoming the highest-grossing animated film in history, surpassing the previous "The Lion King". This movie saved Pixar's reputation and proved that Pixar's brand appeal is still there. As long as it returns to theaters and has a good story, audiences will still come to buy tickets.
TA GPH16Marvel became a victim of the power struggle
Marvel went from a cash cow to a mess. But in Iger’s view, this blame can be attributed to Chapek’s poor decision-making, so he has publicly criticized Marvel many times without worrying about taking responsibility. Perhaps this can also explain why his successor Damaro first took advantage of Marvel to establish his power.
In November 2023, then-CEO Iger rarely criticized his own Marvel Studios at a public event in New York. He publicly stated that creators "forgot their number one priority," which is to entertain audiences first, and said he would no longer tolerate creative teams putting messaging over telling good stories.
In the same month, Iger publicly criticized Marvel's overcapacity at the financial report meeting and announced a significant reduction in production - theater movies were compressed from four to two or three per year, and Disney+ dramas were compressed from four to two per year. Of course, this was former CEO Chapek's mistake, and Iger himself does not need to bear responsibility.
Five months later, Iger once again criticized Marvel in an interview with CNBC, emphasizing that Disney’s first priority is to attract a wide audience. “Putting information delivery as the first priority is not our goal. Movies and series need to be entertaining.”
There is a deeper reason behind Iger's failure to save face for Marvel. Marvel has a special power structure within Disney. Kevin Feige has long enjoyed a high degree of autonomy within Disney, with almost no restrictions.
Feige has been with Marvel for 27 years. He became president of Marvel Studios in 2007 and led the construction of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe starting with "Iron Man" (2008). It can be said that the narrative structure and universe of the MCU were designed by Feige.
After Iger led Disney’s $4 billion acquisition of Marvel in 2009, he gave Marvel considerable creative autonomy. This is Iger’s consistent strategy. He used the same approach when acquiring Pixar and Lucasfilm before, not intervening in creation and letting the original team continue to operate.
Feige’s autonomy was a natural accrual from box office success. Marvel Studios was Disney's most important cash cow in its heyday, and Feige's status was untouchable. The more "Avengers" sold, the better his voice became, and by the time of "Endgame" he became almost an untouchable figure.
When box-office losses continue, this special status becomes a thorn in the management's side - an unfettered but continuous loss-making department, which in any large company is a target that must be rectified. Iger publicly criticized Marvel, and D'Amaro laid off employees and slashed Marvel. In essence, the headquarters was re-establishing its control authority over Marvel Studios.
Marvel and Feige’s last chance
While Feige is unlikely to be fired for the time being, the pressure on him has been building. He is currently fully focused on the production of "Avengers: Endgame" and "Avengers: Secret Wars", while preparing for the X-Men reboot.
With Damaro and Walden taking over, Feige will report to Disney Entertainment Chairman Alan Bergman. This essentially adds a layer of management between Feige and top decision-makers, quietly chipping away at the special independent status Marvel had previously enjoyed. The new leadership has not directly touched Feige, but has begun to tighten control over Marvel by adjusting the reporting structure.
Sources suggest that Walden and D’Amaro may take a deeper look at Marvel Studios once they gain a foothold. Marvel is the only Disney production division that has not undergone a leadership shakeup during Iger's tenure.
However, the impact of this layoff is far more profound than the number itself. The overall disbandment of the visual development team means that Marvel has lost more than ten years of institutional memory. Those professionals who are familiar with the evolution history of each character and can maintain visual coherence between projects will go their separate ways as outsourced contractors. The hiring-by-project model is more flexible in terms of cost, but the price is that each new project has to re-establish a working rapport, and visual consistency will be more difficult to ensure.
Timing is also extremely sensitive. There are currently several important projects on the Marvel calendar: "Spider-Man: A New Day" in the summer of 2026, "Avengers: Doomsday" in December 2026, and "Avengers: Secret Wars" in December 2027. These two "Avengers" movies are Marvel and Feige's best hope for a comeback. The core star Robert Downey Jr. returns as the villain Doctor Doom, pinning the expectations of a large number of fans and the hope that Disney can reverse its decline.
The biggest problem is that the internal teams responsible for the visual development of these projects have now suffered heavy losses. Doomsday and Secret Wars involve hundreds of superheroes and complex multiverse scenarios. Without a strong in-house visual team to control the situation, relying entirely on external VFX houses (such as Weta Digital, Industrial Light & Magic, etc.) may lead to a fragmented visual style.
From a strategic perspective, the Iger era has set a shrinking path for Marvel: theater movies are compressed from four to two or three per year, and Disney+ dramas are compressed from four to two per year. The contraction of production capacity is the right direction, but it is still unknown whether the way of laying off the internal creative team will make the shrinking Marvel more fragile.
The shadow of AI replacement is also unavoidable. Disney officially denies that this layoff is related to AI, but the transition to a contract labor model is highly consistent with the general trend of using AI to reduce the cost of creative talents in Hollywood. In the memo, D'Amaro emphasized the need to build a technology-enabled workforce. It is self-evident what this wording means in the current industry context.
In fact, Marvel’s dilemma is the epitome of the industrialization dilemma of Hollywood’s big IP. When a creative brand is operated as a content factory, when stories become appendages to platform strategy, and when artists become replaceable outsourcing resources, then the audience will make the final judgment with their wallets, and box office is the best criterion.
Perhaps "Avengers: Doomsday" at the end of this year will be a big gamble for Marvel. Winning the bet is the prologue to the return of the Marvel King; losing the bet is the final chapter of the true end of a superhero empire. D'Amaro and other Disney executives may further tighten their control over Feige and Marvel.