
Rutger
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Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro says layoffs impacting about 1,000 roles are underway this week as the company looks to “streamline our operations” across multiple divisions: “Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney,” he wrote in the memo. “Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs. As a result, we will be eliminating roles in some parts of the company and have begun notifying impacted employees.” variety.com/2026/biz/news/…

Disney paid roughly $200 million just for Robert Downey Jr. and the Russo Brothers to come back. That's before a single frame of film was shot. Before sets, VFX, marketing, craft services, anything. The test screening results suggest that $200M bet is about to pay off at somewhere between 10x and 25x. Here's why this leak matters more than the usual hype cycle. This is a pre-reshoots cut. The version that tested at Infinity War levels is the version before they add more characters, more cameos, more fan-service scenes. Reshoots on a film testing this well are additive, not corrective. That's a completely different production posture than what Marvel has been doing for the last five years. The Russos' last two Avengers films did $4.85 billion combined. Infinity War alone cleared $2.05B. Endgame hit $2.8B. The entire Multiverse Saga since then has been a slow bleed of audience trust. Quantumania did $476M on a $200M budget. The Marvels did $206M. Eternals, $402M. Marvel was losing casual viewers at a rate that made the franchise look terminal. The Downey/Russo reunion was always the play of last resort. Downey literally refused to return unless the Russos directed. His deal includes private jets, a security detail, and a trailer compound. The Russos got $80M with escalators at $750M and $1B box office thresholds, plus their AGBO banner gets a producer credit, which is a first for Marvel. And now the thing is testing like Infinity War before reshoots even happen. If Doomsday clears $2B in December 2026, it validates something very specific: Marvel's problem was never the audience. The audience was always there. The problem was that Phase 4 and 5 shipped B-tier directors and C-tier scripts on A-tier IP. The fix wasn't reinventing the formula. The fix was paying for the best people and getting out of their way. The Russos' performance escalators kick in at $750M and $1B. If this thing does Infinity War numbers, those escalators trigger so fast Disney's finance team won't finish the wire transfer before the second weekend.
















