CIRCLE OF LIFE

Disney Axes Marvel Entertainment Chairman Amid Layoffs

The company is set to lay off 7,000 employees.

Disney has laid off Marvel Entertainment Chairman Issac “Ike” Perlmutter as the company cuts costs across the board amid CEO Bob Iger’s return. Disney’s layoffs began Monday, with the company set to shed 7,000 employees. And Marvel has faced a series of kerfuffles in recent weeks, as the company dropped former VFX and animation president Victoria Alonso last week. It’s also been dealing with the leak of the entire Ant Man script. Perlmutter, 80, was told Marvel Entertainment would be folded into bigger Disney business units going forward, employees told The New York Times. Perlmutter had held a major role in Marvel since the late 1990s, and sold the company to Disney in 2009. In recent years, Perlmutter’s role has mostly been limited to Marvel comics, following a fight with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige in 2015.