Disney
announced
big
layoffs
earlier
this
week,
reporting
that
roughly
1,000
employees
across
the
company
had
just
had
their
jobs
eliminated.
While
the
cuts
were
company-wide,
reports
from
Forbes suggested
that
one
of
the
biggest
branches
hit
was
Marvel
Studios,
which
lost
staffers
across
the
board—but
which
suffered
especially
harsh
cuts
to
its
famed
visual
development
team.
(I.e.,
the
Kevin
Feige-assembled
crew
responsible
for
designing
the
overall
look
of
the
Marvel
Cinematic
Universe.)
Almost
the
entire
department
was
reportedly
eliminated
in
the
new
cuts,
which
came
as
new
CEO
Josh
D’Amaro
took
over
his
position
in
the
wake
of
the
Second
Leaving
of
Disney
corporate
messiah
Bob
Iger.
Today, Polygon has
a
new
report
diving
a
bit
deeper
into
what
the
visual
development
team
did
that
was
such
a
big
deal,
as
well
as
probing
some
anonymous
sources
as
to
why it
might
have
been
targeted
for
skeleton-crew-ification.
For
the
unfamiliar,
visual
development
was
one
of
Feige’s
big
ideas
for
making
sure
the
Marvel
movies
had
a
cohesive
look:
The
dozen-plus
artists
on
the
team
were
typically
the
first
ones
to
take
a
crack
at
characters
being
introduced
to
the
MCU,
before
passing
them
off
to
the
staffs
working
on
individual
films.
That
included
designing
looks,
costumes,
and
even
specific
shots
for
movies—often
inspired
by
their
collective
love
of
the
original
Marvel
Comics.
(One
anonymous
visual
development
staffer
who’s
quoted
in
the
Polygon
piece—and
who
pushes
pretty
hard
on
the
idea
that
individual
departments
were
not
always
wild about
having
this
kind
of
vision
imposed
on
them
from
above—noted
that
visual
development’s
goals
were
often
counter
to
the
instincts
of
film
industry
folks
who
“try
and
run
away
from”
the
look
of
the
original
comics.)
Besides
creating
some
of
the
films’
most
iconic
visuals—the
big
“Avengers
Assemble”
pose
shot
from
near
the
end
of
The
Avengers apparently
had
its
start
as
a
piece
of
visual
development
concept
art—the
group
was
also
responsible
for
making
sure
MCU
films
were
able
to
slot
together
in
a
way
where
no
one
character
looked
just
wildly
out
of
place
with
the
rest
when
the
inevitable
(and
lucrative)
crossovers
occurred.
As
to
why
the
department
was
cut,
there
are
a
few
different
theories
levied,
ranging
from
studio
politics
to
worries
about
AI
bleeding
into
the
workflow.
(One
staffer
claims,
without
naming
names,
that
individual
Marvel
film
teams
are
already
using
AI
to
develop
visuals
for
their
movies—even
if
nothing
generated
has
made
it
into
any
final
shots.)
The
most
plausible
answer,
though,
is
one
of
the
most
prosaic
and
depressing:
Disney
just
doesn’t
want
to
have
that
many
full-time
artists
on
staff
any
more,
and
would
rather
lay
these
people
off
and
then
hire
them
back
as
freelancers
on
a
film-by-film
basis.
(The
report
notes
that
visual
development
was
expanded
as
a
standalone
department
when
Marvel
was
making
its
big
push
into
TV
a
few
years
back;
the
pivot
away
from
that
development
probably
didn’t
help
their
case.)
Given
the
timelines
these
movies
film
under—and
how
early
visual
development
was
involved
in
planning
for
new
films—it’ll
probably
be
at
least
a
few
years
before
the
effects
of
the
cuts
will
filter
into
theaters.
But
it’ll
be
interesting
to
see
if
Marvel
can
hold
to
its
own
visual
language
without
the
team
that
helped
to
craft
it
being
immediately
on
hand.
