Last week, the Disney Group and Netflix, among the top six in Hollywood, launched a new round of layoffs. Not only ordinary employees, but even senior management were not spared.

Marvel's former leader was dismissed

This round of layoffs at Disney Group involves as many as 7,000 employees, including Isaac Perlmutter, chairman and CEO of Marvel Entertainment LLC (Marvel Entertainment). He received a dismissal order on March 29, which caused quite a stir in Hollywood. However, compared to the overly exaggerated and misunderstood interpretations of many media at home and abroad, Pemut's resignation actually has little impact on Marvel movies and Disney, and will not involve any continuation of Marvel film and television works. Production.

Isaac Pemut, 81, was born in Israel in 1942 and immigrated to the United States in his twenties. It is said that when he first arrived in New York, he had only $250 on him, and he barely made ends meet by helping to preside over funerals at several Jewish cemeteries in Brooklyn. Later, he found a job selling stock toys and cosmetics along the street, and gradually accumulated industry experience and original capital.

Isaac Pemut

In 1990, Pemut and Israeli fellow Avi Arad (Avi Arad) jointly acquired the Marvel Toys Company, and then went through various equity exchanges and acquisitions, and finally became the boss of the Marvel Group, and in 2009 Sold Marvel to Disney for $4 billion. In this change of hands, Pemut personally received US$800 million plus US$600 million in Disney stock, but failed to join the Disney board of directors, which made him unwilling.

After the Marvel Group was acquired, the film industry developed in full swing, and the status of producer Kevin Feige (Kevin Feige) has risen, and he has won the trust of Disney management. Pemut, the CEO of Marvel Entertainment, But gradually reduced to a secondary role, the two often quarreled because of various decision-making issues.

There is a group of people in the Marvel fan community who really hate Isaac Pemter's style of acting. I hope Thanos will take him away with a snap of his fingers, and it has been circulating on social media for years, and it is widely circulated

In 2015, Disney separated Marvel Movies, which belonged to Marvel Entertainment, and promoted Kevin Fitch as the person in charge, skipping Pemut and reporting directly to Disney headquarters. What is left for Pemut is only Marvel TV, Marvel Animation and other projects. In October 2019, in order to achieve a game of chess deployment, Kevin Fitch, chairman of Marvel Films, was appointed as the so-called chief creative officer of Marvel, who also took charge of Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Comics, Marvel TV, and Marvel Animation. The overall creation of the four major companies has completely reduced the nominal leader of Marvel Entertainment, Pemut, to a supporting role. So far, what is actually still left to him, or in other words, left to the collective decision-making of Marvel Entertainment, is only the business of various Marvel IP derivative consumer products.

In this regard, this old man who has been in the mall for decades will naturally not be caught without a fight. At the beginning of 2022, he teamed up with Wall Street tycoon Nelson Peltz (Nelson Peltz) to stage a forced palace drama, hoping to help the latter join the board of directors of Disney Group as a major shareholder, which will continue to reduce his power. ’ The talker, Bob Iger, was kicked out. As a result, Pemut failed to fulfill his wish, and Iger also chose to kill him at this time.

On March 29, Disney announced the overall abolition of Marvel Entertainment Co., Ltd., and the original personnel and organizational structure were incorporated into the Disney Group, but including Isaac Pemut and the company's second and third figures, they were all abolished. Sent home, only the original Marvel Entertainment President Dan Buckley (Dan Buckley) was left to clean up the mess, and Kevin Feige became his direct leader.

Netflix head of documentaries and low-budget films departs

Compared to Disney, the personnel change of another film and television giant has caused even greater repercussions in Hollywood, but it has seldom attracted media attention in China. Also on March 29, Netflix announced the reorganization of the film department to reduce the annual film production. Lisa Nishimura (Lisa Nishimura), who has been in charge of the overall production of Netflix documentaries and low-cost movies for a long time, said goodbye to her old club for which she had worked so hard for 16 years.

Lisa Nishimura

The 51-year-old Nishimura is a Japanese-American born in San Francisco. After graduating from college, he entered the recording industry and worked for a while at Palm Pictures, a well-known independent film distribution company in New York. In 2007, she joined Netflix, which had just launched an online streaming service at that time, and was responsible for discovering distinctive independent film and television works in the market and buying out their online copyrights at a suitable price.

In 2013, under her leadership, Netflix began to invest in the production of original documentaries and comedy shows. In 2014, Netflix was nominated for the best documentary feature film for the first time with "Egyptian Square", and then in 2017. With the short documentary "White Helmet", Netflix won the first Oscar statuette. In 2019, she was promoted to vice president of independent film and documentary production in the Netflix group until her sudden departure last week.

In the years of Netflix, Lisa Nishimura has promoted almost every documentary works such as "Making a Murderer", "Tiger King", "The Chef's Table", "The Kingdom of Aliens" and "Tinder Swindler" on the line After that, it quickly became a hot item, and thus it has the nickname of "Queen of Documentary Series". The documentary "American Factory" she served as the producer won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film three years ago; and "The Power of Dogs", which won the Silver Lion Award for Best Director in Venice the year before, was also inseparable from Nishimura's work. credit.

American Factory poster

Therefore, after Nishimura announced his resignation, the Hollywood media couldn't help being in an uproar. The "Hollywood Reporter" even directly gave the title of the article "Lisa Nishimura's departure marks the end of an era for Netflix". Director Jeff Olowitzky Young, who has directed Netflix documentary series "Surveillance Capitalism: Smart Trap" and other works, also said: "Lisa Nishimura is one of the biggest contributors to bringing documentaries into the attention of mainstream audiences in recent years." First, it is a great contribution to the entire industry to allow documentary works to have the same status as feature films.”

Indeed, Lisa Nishimura's Netflix has become a stronghold for high-quality documentaries, such as their What's Happening, Miss Simone? ", "Icarus", "The Thirteenth Amendment", "The Edge of Democracy", "American Factory", "My Octopus Teacher", "The Menstrual Revolution", "Virunga", "Winter Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom" " Works such as "Little Elephant Guardian" have always gained something in the awards season over the years. However, such a situation is likely to change with her departure.

Over the years, Netflix's film production division has stuck to a two-legged approach under the leadership of Scott Stuber. On one side are star works with large capital investment, such as "Men in Gray", "Knives Out 2", "Guardian of Eternal Life", etc., and on the other side are various low-cost dramas and documentaries in charge of Lisa Nishimura. However, since last year, Netflix's film department has begun to restructure, and personnel changes frequently, which also reflect changes in the company's business philosophy.

Because of the well-known epidemic, the total number of Netflix subscribers once ushered in explosive growth in 2020, and even shouted the Great Leap Forward slogan of "launching an original new film every week" in early 2021. However, with the end of the epidemic, the ebb of the "stay-at-home economy" and the sluggish global economy, Netflix also had to quickly adjust its policy, and instead emphasized the need to focus on producing some high-quality original movies. The focus is not on quantity, but on quality.

According to industry reports, Netflix has recently become more and more picky about the investment and production of low-cost independent works. Unless it is a work that has a strong Oscar hope, original independent films of ordinary quality may find investment opportunities on Netflix. will become less and less. The saved funds and manpower will be invested in medium-to-high-cost works led by stars and more likely to attract the attention of the audience.

Now, with the departure of Lisa Nishimura, such a general trend is a foregone conclusion. Of course, this kind of policy shift to tighten the belt to live a hard life is not limited to Netflix. Showtime, a cable TV station owned by Paramount, also fired Vinnie Malhotra (Vinnie Malhotra), the executive vice president in charge of documentary production, last month; The department responsible for investment and purchase of documentary works; coupled with the sudden departure of Arianna Bocco (Arianna Bocco), chairman of the independent film company IFC under AMC Theaters, all of these herald a change in Hollywood's wind direction.