For decades, Walt Disney Pictures and its subsidiaries have dominated the film industry with productions that strike a deft balance between commercial success and genuine artistry. Recently, however, it’s gotten a lot harder to enjoy the House of Mouse’s output. Bloating budgets, poor working conditions, and back-to-back disappointments at the box office have affected everything from Marvel to Star Wars. Disney films just don’t look or feel the way they used to, and much of the fault lies with the company’s corner-cutting, especially where its visual effects are concerned.
Dubious behind-the-scenes practices have percolated across the industry for years, and Disney isn’t the only perpetrator. But tensions between the studio and the industry’s VFX houses, along with the non-unionized VFX workers employed by Disney, came to a head in 2023. Marvel’s abhorrent practices were also unearthed in a handful of exposés, each of which painted a portrait of an industry ready to blow. When the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild went on strike, it felt like a step in the right direction. Disney’s in-house visual effects teams then took their own measures to unionize and negotiate for better working conditions.
Fast forward two years, and VFX artists across the Disney brand are finally gaining headway. With help from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, teams from Marvel, Lightstorm Entertainment (who produce the Avatar films), and Disney proper have each struck a historic agreement. Gizmodo reports that the groups have “overwhelmingly” voted to ratify contracts to ensure better working conditions for any upcoming projects.
These contracts will protect Disney’s VFX teams for the next three to four years, hopefully preventing the “crunch” that kneecapped many of the studio’s most recent projects. The two groups at Marvel and Disney are united under one contract, while Lightstorm’s team has its own. The former will offer extra pay for “hazardous set conditions, and health and comfort during long postproduction assignments,” while Lightstorm’s contract ensures that current employees will get preferential hiring on future Avatar projects, a more accommodating wage scale, and “protections against technological change and subcontracting,” like AI-assisted filmmaking.
While this agreement only affects Disney’s in-house teams for now, it’s a major step forward for the entire VFX industry. It’s “just one more way our crew is leading the industry,” said Justin Meade, a virtual camera coordinator for Lightstorm. “I deeply hope that other VFX crews will follow with us and vote to unionize. Our power is in our labor, and our voices are heard through our solidarity.”
