There is some absolutely wild news surfacing about Universal Creative’s leadership. According to The Wrap, most of Universal Creative’s executives have taken “early retirement”… all at the same time! This includes the Chief Creative Officer of Universal Creative, Thierry Coup.
NBCUniversal recently offered all of its employees who are 57 years old or older (as well as anyone with 10 years or more seniority) an early retirement option. As you might expect, many in the company are concerned that if they don’t take the generous early retirement offer, they may get caught up in a less generous layoff later.
Universal’s creative staff have been grumbling at industry events recently that their mega-theme park project in Orlando, Epic Universe, is getting less and less epic by the day. What the project was promised to be, and what it is shaping up to be, may not live up to the grandiose name.
Meanwhile, Disney’s Imagineering has been absolutely decimated in the last year with many let go during park closures and never called back, and others separated from the company when they refused to agree to relocation to Orlando from their historic offices in Glendale (Disney project to move 2,000+ jobs Lake Nona, Florida).
Both Universal and Disney’s parks have been having a record year of profits with strong visitation.
It won’t be hard for Universal to select new top creatives who have power and respect in the theme park industry as there are lots of talented people in the industry who are either out of work at the moment or likely to be willing to jump ship. It will be much harder for Disney Imagineering to recapture the history and experience they have lost as Disney has always relied on its history and nostalgia to drive repeat visits.
At this time, we do not know all the names of those choosing early retirement, but the wrap quoted a Universal Creative employee as saying “pretty much every remaining SVP has left the division.” We’re keeping an eye on when, or if, the other shoe drops and layoffs hit the rank and file of Universal Creative as they already have at Disney.
We’ll have more on this shocking turn of events for you soon.
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2,000 Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products Jobs Moving to Orlando
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