Disney has reportedly laid off over 1,000 employees, and one of the biggest concerns among that bunch is that Marvel Studios‘ visual development team (the group of concept artists that bring the MCU to life, visually) has nearly been gutted entirely.
Forbes is behind the report outlining how the company layoffs are directly impacting the artist team over at Marvel, who have been working at the studio for a decade, with some artists having been there longer. The few that remain, a skeleton crew sorts, are said to be coordinating the hiring on a per-project basis.
It’s quite the crass move by the new CEO, Josh D’Amaro, as the company that bears Walt Disney‘s name was founded by and run on the work of a fleet of artists. This also comes as the company is itching to get into the world of AI, recently ending its relationship with OpenAI’s Sora and still pursuing new partnerships with the tech world. Another element here is that many financial cuts that are made by corporations tend to be executives shoring up their own salaries and bonuses by trimming jobs (which may or may not be the case here).
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The problem here is not only that skilled artists are losing their jobs (alongside other hard-working employees at Disney), but what happens to all these gestating projects at Marvel Studios, Marvel Television, and Marvel Animation when scorned talent simply decides they don’t want to be mistreated by Disney and are only being offered sparse freelance work?
Hollywood execs and creatives (many of them unionized) are butting heads about the future of the use of AI in films, television, and streaming. If a place like Marvel cannot even keep their project artists in full employment, this could be a signal that more layoffs are on the way at other studios and maybe more rounds at Disney, too.
Does the studio start to rely more and more on AI for future MCU installments? We certainly hope not.
Insult to injury here is that Disney/Marvel often releases these elaborate and collectable art books (can be pricey depending on the edition) for each MCU project, which feature as much concept art as they can cram into those pages (an example above for “Deadpool & Wolverine”). So, the company is not only profiting from their work at the studio but also within the publishing space, and many pieces are often incorporated into marketing these projects (a recent “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” poster featuring the titular hero advancing against The Hand dropped during CinemaCon is obviously using artwork from the Visual Development artists at Marvel).
Wesley Burt, one of those key members of Marvel’s concept art team shown the door this week, took to social media (See below) to comment on the “irony” of the conference room where he was getting laid off by HR, featuring his own artwork with a mural from the Disney+ show “Loki.”
Can’t help but feel like this is a concerning sign of things to come, sadly not just at Marvel/Disney but across the industry. Paramount Skydance is also laying off employees (said to be 2,000) in the wake of their hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros.Discovery alongside Amazon as well.
the irony of having a one-on-one HR layoff meeting in the conference room with my Loki mural on it https://t.co/94sLrfojOj pic.twitter.com/llKhz5pO61
— Wesley Burt (@wesburt) April 15, 2026
New teaser poster for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. In theatres July 31. 🕷️ pic.twitter.com/JeeHapmSMx
— Spider-Man (@SpiderMan) April 14, 2026
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