Kevin Feige, Dave Filoni, Pete Docter, Jennifer Lee and Josh D'Amaro tease Disney's Epic Games partnerships at D23 2024. Disney Twenty-four hours before the news broke that the $1 billion Disney-OpenAI partnership was dead, staff at both companies were still working to develop their plan to bring Disney’s characters to the Sora video platform and Disney+. Yet, on Tuesday, OpenAI shuttered Sora, and Disney, led by CEO Josh D’Amaro, pulled out of the agreement, which hadn’t yet closed.
Welcome to the CEO suite, Josh.
In less than a week since taking over the coveted job of CEO of The Walt Disney Co., Josh D’Amaro finds himself navigating a flurry of major events that will impact the company. Some may alter its strategic focus. Others its content or experiences.
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But they will have an impact, and it is now D’Amaro’s crisis to solve.
From the collapse of the OpenAI deal to a strategic shift from Disney partner Epic Games; A dramatic last-minute decision to pull an essentially completed season of ABC’s The Bachelorette to a Middle East theme park that may be impacted by the war in Iran, there is no part of Disney’s business that is unscathed.
But it was Tuesday’s double-whammy of OpenAI and Epic Games that put D’Amaro’s own priorities in the spotlight. Sources close to D’Amaro’s thinking have told The Hollywood Reporter that gaming and interactivity were key strategic focus points for him.
“He sees the digital realm — and Epic is a manifestation of that — as a very important place for fans to interact with their favorite characters, franchises and brands in a comprehensive way that you can monetize and that will serve fan interest in a way that, other than a theme park, it’s really impossible to do,” said Kevin Mayer, the former head of strategy at Disney who now co-leads Candle Media.
Tuesday, however, Epic Games slashed about 20 percent of its staff, more than 1,000 jobs, citing problems with its flagship Fortnite franchise … the same franchise that Disney’s Epic Games deal is connected to.
“The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we’re spending significantly more than we’re making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded,” Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney told staff in a blunt memo explaining the cuts.
D’Amaro was the driving force behind Disney’s $1.5 billion Epic Games investment (he joined Epic’s board as an observer), and a planned IP-laden Disney universe connected to Fortnite. Sweeney told THR last month that the project is progressing, though the companies can’t share details just yet.
“Josh and Disney really get it and have a crisp understanding of how the future of their film and TV IP, Disney+ and games fit together into a digital ecosystem and tie into parks and other things,” he said.
But Epic’s cuts do raise questions about the future of the project, especially if Fortnite’s troubles continue. D’Amaro continues to elevate gaming, moving Disney games chief Sean Shoptaw into Dana Walden’s purview, placing him alongside Disney’s TV and film leadership.
Conversely, perhaps Disney’s trove of characters can be the driving force that turns Fortnite around. Given the fandoms around Marvel, Star Wars and other franchises, it certainly isn’t out of the question.
OpenAI, meanwhile, was a billion-dollar bet from D’Amaro’s predecessor Bob Iger, who told Wall Street analysts afterward that if the tech is going to happen, then Disney needs to find a way to embrace it.
“We’ve always felt that if it’s going to happen, including disruption of our current business models, then we should get on board and figure out how we advantage our company and our shareholders, you know, by moving forward with a sense of optimism and being aggressive about it,” Iger said.
But the partnerships drew angst from creatives, wary of the slop that Sora produced, and with the company cavalierly choosing to ignore any guardrails around IP when it launched. Iger had a vision to bring the best Sora videos to Disney+, and ultimately to enable Disney+ users to create their own short AI-generated videos.
That could still happen. Disney is not necessarily getting out of the AI business altogether.
The company said Tuesday that “we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators,” but with OpenAI out, it isn’t clear who else they would partner with in the near-term.
When D’Amaro addressed Disney shareholders on March 18, the exec said he wants to make Disney+ a “digital centerpiece” of the company, “a portal that connects our stories, experiences, games, films, and more in entirely new ways.”
As for The Bachelorette, which ABC pulled from its lineup after video surfaced of an alleged domestic violence incident involving star Taylor Frankie Paul, sources note that the decision was made a couple rungs below D’Amaro, though the move could cost Disney tens of millions of dollars. There is already speculation that Disney could try to salvage the show by putting it exclusively on Hulu.
But a high-profile dispute around one of ABC’s flagship franchises is not what the company needs at the moment.
And then there’s Disney’s experiences division, where D’Amaro cut his teeth.
The challenges the company faces today pale in comparison to the COVID-19 pandemic, but once again international affairs are finding a way to impact Disney’s planning.
Last year Disney announced plans for a new theme park in Abu Dhabi, funded and built by the Miral Group, but developed with Disney. In an interview with THR at the time, D’Amaro noted how a third of the world is just a few hours flight from the UAE.
“Abu Dhabi is an incredible place,” he said. “It’s an international crossroads, a place that celebrates art and creativity and still celebrates their heritage, something that fits very nicely with the Disney company, and we think with this new park, we have an opportunity to celebrate everything that is special about the Disney stories, all the tradition that comes along with our theme parks, but really lean into a modern aesthetic.”
Now, of course, Abu Dhabi finds itself in the middle of the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran, with missiles and drones being sent toward the UAE, and the long-term ramifications of the war still unknown.
At Disney’s annual meeting last week, in a video that served as an introduction to his tenure as CEO, D’Amaro alluded to the Abu Dhabi project as “the first new park in a decade in a brand new corner of the world,” as a rendering of the park appeared on screen. He did not mention Abu Dhabi.
The park is still many years away, and Abu Dhabi’s goal of turning Yas Island into a global tourist destination remains ongoing, but it is yet another challenge for D’Amaro to navigate.
A CEO of a Fortune 500 company once told me that the job is to set the tone and strategy for the company’s future, while adapting to the reality of the present. If you run an airline, you have to game out what Iran means for oil prices and travel plans and develop a strategy to secure more market share; If you run a global retailer, you need to adapt to tariffs and secure supply chains while keeping customer traffic growing; If you run a tech company, you need to make your AI bets while figuring out where to pull back (looking at you Meta and Mark Zuckerberg).
D’Amaro set the tone for his run as CEO last week, embracing technology and the creative engines that power Disney.
“Simply put, while others in our industry are consolidating just to compete, or struggling to be relevant in a fragmented and disrupted world, Disney is in a category of one poised to accelerate into our next era of innovation and growth,” D’Amaro told Disney shareholders. “And this next chapter will be driven by staying focused on world-class creativity, enhanced by technology, bringing unforgettable stories to audiences wherever they are.”
But the days that followed show that he will need to be just as nimble when it comes to adapting to the hand he is dealt, be it a tech partnership or TV franchise that get pulled, or global events that impact visitation to its lucrative experiences division.
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