According to bloomberg.com, Maker Studios will become part of the Walt Disney Company’s consumer products and interactive media division. This move will apparently “better integrate the business.” By bringing Maker into the consumer products and interactive media division, Disney’s “ad sales employees will be able to offer marketers sponsorship opportunities across all of its businesses, including Maker.” This change in the structure of the company has lead to Disney laying off 80 employees from Maker.
Maker Studios has had multiple changes in its management structure. For example, Disney moved Maker chief Courtney Holt to Disney’s corporate strategy team and placed Andrew Sugerman to lead Maker. Sugerman is Disney’s executive vice president of the consumer division.
These changes were made due to Disney and Maker’s struggles in working together to promote each other’s best interests. Maker made a hard push to promote Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but overall, Disney has had a hard time using Maker as a tool to promote their iconic characters through online videos because most of Maker’s team are “independent personalities.”
This change is not related to Disney’s decision to drop YouTube star Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, over his anti-Semitic content.
Maker was acquired by Disney in 2014 for $500 million dollars, with possible additional earnings if Maker hit certain goals. This left the final acquisition price at $675 million dollars. If Maker had hit all of their performance targets the total cost for Disney would have been $950 million dollars.
News source: bloomberg.com
Photo source: Variety
