Disney and Sony Layoffs Signal Hollywood Studio Strain

Walt Disney Co. and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. announced layoffs within two weeks of each other, and the numbers aren’t small.

Sony filed an April 8 notice with California’s Employment Development Department confirming 133 job cuts. Of those, 111 positions are based at Sony’s Culver City headquarters. Disney hadn’t filed a comparable notice by press deadline, though the company confirmed its own workforce reductions through internal communications obtained by Variety.

The two announcements landed within roughly 12 days of each other. Both companies framed the cuts as structural rather than reactive, a distinction that doesn’t mean much to the people losing jobs.

Josh D’Amaro took the top job at Disney in March. Ravi Ahuja stepped into the Sony chief executive role at the start of 2026. Neither walked into an easy situation. Both inherited studios still carrying damage from Covid-19 shutdowns, the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes, and the grinding cost of producing content anywhere in Southern California. The math hasn’t been working for years. What’s changed is the leadership’s willingness to act on it fast.

In a memo to staff obtained by Variety, D’Amaro said Disney would build “a more agile and technologically enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs.” The memo also described the company as “reducing roles in certain areas while increasing focus and investment in others that are most critical to our future.” That second line came from Ahuja’s internal email to Sony staff, obtained by Deadline. Two different companies, two different memos, nearly identical language.

Film, television, and corporate departments at both studios are affected.

California’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires any employer with more than 75 workers to give the state 60 days’ advance notice before cutting more than 50 positions. Sony filed on April 8. Disney’s failure to submit a comparable notice drew scrutiny from labor observers and reporters tracking both situations. The WARN Act filing is a public document, which means Sony’s 133-person reduction is on the record. Disney’s isn’t, at least not yet.

The Disney and Sony announcements don’t exist in isolation. J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions Inc. disclosed it’s shutting its Los Angeles office and moving to New York City with a smaller team. Bad Robot had been a long-standing fixture in the L.A. production community. Its departure adds to a string of exits that suggest the region’s grip on the industry isn’t what it was. The company’s move carries weight well beyond its headcount because it signals where creative infrastructure is drifting.

Michael Levine, founder of the Hollywood-based public relations firm Boundless Media, didn’t sugarcoat it. “Los Angeles was the home of Hollywood and the entertainment industry for decades, but now the world has changed, and it is easier to move opportunities to less costly locations,” Levine told the LA Business Journal.

One entertainment industry analyst who spoke with the Business Journal was direct about D’Amaro’s position. “He is going to have to respond to the gravitational pull of the market,” the analyst said. “It’s a tough way to start (for D’Amaro), but it is a necessity. When a patient’s bleeding, you have no choice,” he said.

That’s the context Burbank’s city planning department is working inside right now. Disney is Burbank’s largest private employer. When the company signals it’s trimming headcount, it’s not just a corporate story. It’s a land-use story, a tax-base story, and a question about whether the studio expands its local footprint or quietly steps back from it. The planning department has tracked studio development proposals for years. Layoffs at this scale can shift those calculations.

Sony’s situation centers in Culver City, not Burbank, but the industry doesn’t split neatly by city limit. Production vendors, stage rental companies, and post-production houses across the San Fernando Valley work with both studios. A reduction of 133 jobs at Sony, with layoffs effective as of June 12 and June 19 based on the April 8 WARN filing, moves through that supply chain.

California’s Employment Development Department maintains public WARN Act records. The Sony notice is there. Disney’s page stays blank.