Sean Bailey, the longtime president of Walt Disney Studios Movement Image Manufacturing, resigned Monday amid a management shuffling at Disney’s movie division, which has been below assault by some traders for disappointing outcomes on the field workplace.
“The time is true for a brand new chapter,” Mr. Bailey mentioned in an announcement.
Disney named David Greenbaum, a co-president of Disney’s artwork movie division, Searchlight Footage, as Mr. Bailey’s successor. Mr. Greenbaum, nevertheless, was given a much bigger job, overseeing each Mr. Bailey’s slate of live-action remakes of animated classics and twentieth Century Studios, a Disney movie division that manages the “Avatar” and “Planet of the Apes” franchises.
Mr. Greenbaum joined Searchlight in 2010. He beforehand labored at Miramax when it was making movies like “There Will Be Blood” and “No Nation for Previous Males.” He just lately helped Disney win the streaming rights for “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.”
“David has an unimaginable sensibility and eye for movie,” Alan Bergman, co-chairman of Disney Leisure, mentioned in an announcement.
Matthew Greenfield, who was named co-president of Searchlight with Mr. Greenbaum in 2021, was given sole oversight of that division, which is thought for Oscar-winning status movies like “12 Years a Slave” and “Nomadland.” Searchlight’s present Oscar contender, “Poor Issues,” has collected practically $100 million worldwide; it price $35 million, not together with advertising and marketing.
Mr. Bailey was a manufacturing president at Disney for 14 years — an eternity in Hollywood, the place movie chiefs are sometimes jettisoned each few years. Over that point, Disney was roiled by government firings, restructuring efforts and shifting methods for movie distribution. The steady-handed Mr. Bailey, who’s widespread with stars and their brokers, helped present stability.
His hits included the live-action “Aladdin,” which collected $1.1 billion on the field workplace. A photorealistic “The Lion King” took in $1.7 billion. A live-action “Magnificence and the Beast” delivered $1.3 billion.
Extra just lately, Mr. Bailey’s division struggled — together with different Disney studios, together with Marvel — to seek out new blockbusters. His remake of “The Little Mermaid,” which price an estimated $375 million to make and market, collected about $570 million worldwide after its launch final spring; Disney had hoped for nearer to $1 billion. (Theaters and studios break up ticket gross sales roughly 50-50.) “The Haunted Mansion,” overseen by Mr. Bailey, fell flat in July.
Mr. Bailey was a vocal supporter of variety at Disney. A live-action “Snow White,” set for launch subsequent yr, stars the Latina actress Rachel Zegler because the princess often called “the fairest of all of them.” Halle Bailey, who’s Black, performed the title position in “The Little Mermaid.”
That worldview — and enterprise technique — more and more put Disney and Mr. Bailey, a low-profile and self-effacing government, within the center of a really loud, very unpolite cultural struggle. For each one who applauds Disney, there appears to be a counterpart who complains about being force-fed “wokeness.”
Mr. Bailey had proven indicators of restlessness. In latest weeks, he talked to Netflix leaders a few senior film place. Final yr, he held related conversations with Amazon. Three years in the past, when he most just lately renewed his contract with Disney, he made it clear that he it was probably his final.
“I do know he’ll proceed to do nice issues,” Mr. Bergman mentioned of Mr. Bailey, who, at the very least within the close to time period, will grow to be a producer on the Disney lot.
He’ll produce “Tron: Aries,” a follow-up to “Tron: Legacy,” a 2010 film that he additionally produced — catching the attention of Disney leaders, who recruited him as an government.
