AVS Discussions
General => A/V Industry News => Topic started by: SRW1000 on April 15, 2026, 08:14:51 PM
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This is part of a much larger article from The Wrap that discusses the general Disney layoffs. Full article here: Disney Layoffs Hit Marvel, Home Entertainment Teams (https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/disney-layoffs-marvel-publicity-teams-2026/)
Among those let go are 20 people from the company’s publicity departments, as well as the entire home entertainment team, led by executive director of global publicity and marketing communications Chris Bess. Also gone is the EPK team, including director of creative content Natalie Clunis.
On the digital marketing side, positions at every level were eliminated including SVP of Global Digital Marketing Dustin Sandoval and Director of Digital Marketing Mike Reeder.
This isn't great news for those of us collecting physical media, although there are other options, such as how Arrow has partnered with Warner for some of their older titles.
On a personal note, Chris Bess was our Disney contact. Not only were their press releases some of the most complete in regard to tech details, but he was also quick to respond to emails.
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This is part of a much larger article from The Wrap that discusses the general Disney layoffs. Full article here: Disney Layoffs Hit Marvel, Home Entertainment Teams (https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/disney-layoffs-marvel-publicity-teams-2026/)
Among those let go are 20 people from the company’s publicity departments, as well as the entire home entertainment team, led by executive director of global publicity and marketing communications Chris Bess. Also gone is the EPK team, including director of creative content Natalie Clunis.
On the digital marketing side, positions at every level were eliminated including SVP of Global Digital Marketing Dustin Sandoval and Director of Digital Marketing Mike Reeder.
This isn't great news for those of us collecting physical media, although there are other options, such as how Arrow has partnered with Warner for some of their older titles.
On a personal note, Chris Bess was our Disney contact. Not only were their press releases some of the most complete in regard to tech details, but he was also quick to respond to emails.
So sad to see that Chris was let go. This is another reason why the Disney/Fox merger should have been rejected. We were told that they would continue to release the same amount of movies each year and that layoffs would be very few. On both counts we were lied to. Movie releases are actually down and plenty of people have been let go, plus physical media releases have been cut back drastically. Sure, Disney has started to pick up the pace in the past 6 months, but it's nowhere near what Fox used to release just on their own. Furthermore, Disney has taken the Fox releases and increased the prices substantially (over 50%). How was this good for consumers?
Next will be the Paramount/Warner merger. Paramount has already cut their PR department and outsourced it to another company, and I'm sure the same is going to happen to Warner once that deal goes through. My son-in-law works in PR at Universal and thus far they haven't had the cutbacks that the other studios have...in fact, they've added positions. But if every other studio is having cutbacks, it's just a matter of time that Universal will end up doing the same.
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Streaming services an tv series are taking over