The Walt Disney Company is facing “serious consequences” and possible legal action for Marvel VFX chief Victoria Alonso’s pink slip this week.
To make it clear to Bob Iger, Kevin Feige and everyone at the House of Mouse that he’s not going away quietly, the Oscar-nominated producer has enlisted the services of Patti Glazer. To that end, with competing POVs on what’s going on at BTS, Glaser Weil Fink partner Howard Avchen & Shapiro LLP is turning its attention to Disney.
In a statement released Friday by the now-former president of physical and post-production, VFX and animation production for Marvel Studios, the plaintiff, who is already leading Disney-owned LucasFilm to court over the preservation of star Wars television series The Acolyte Karin McCarthy EP said:
The idea that Victoria was fired for a handful of press interviews related to a personal passion project about human rights and democracy that was nominated for an Oscar and that she got Disney’s blessing to work on is absolutely ridiculous. Victoria, a gay Latina who had the nerve to criticize Disney, was silenced. Then she was terminated when she refused to do something she thought was reprehensible. Disney and Marvel made a really bad decision that will have serious consequences. There is much more to this story and Victoria will tell it soon – in one forum or another.
Disney doesn’t do this shot across the nose without a message of their own.
“It is unfortunate that Victoria is sharing a narrative that omits several key factors regarding her departure, including an undisputed breach of contract and a direct violation of company policy,” a Disney spokesperson told Deadline this evening. “We will continue to wish her the best in the future and thank her for her many contributions to the studio.”
Alonso still has it Opportunity is your superpower a memoir coming out later this year from the Disney imprint.
The very press-friendly Alonso, who has consistently been an outspoken advocate for diversity at Disney to the point where she called on then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek to “take a stand” against Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, suddenly left Marvel Studios earlier this week after nearly two decades.
“So I’m asking you again, Mr. Chapek: Please respect — if we’re selling a family — take a stand against all these crazy outdated laws,” Alonso told a GLAAD audience about the blatant discriminatory move in the Sunshine State, also known as the home of DisneyWorld . “Take a stand for the family. Stop saying you tolerate us…We deserve the right to live, love and have. More importantly, we deserve an origin story.”
We hear that after her remarks to GLAAD last April about Disney’s mishandling of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, Alonso was censured by executives and told she can no longer do interviews or media at all. Alonso was even asked late last year by a prominent director to talk about a Marvel movie, but she remained speechless. Then came the self-described “reprehensible” incident, which appeared to involve a disagreement with a non-Iger Disney executive, we’ve learned.
With that, though, we hear that Buenos Aires-born Alonso initially didn’t want permission to produce the Academy Award nominee Argentina, 1985, but saw her contract reworked out of respect for her years with the company. The hitch was that Alonso clearly shouldn’t have promoted the political drama, which she did. That was the tipping point, says an insider.
As for Alonso being told to stay away from the press, there are more than a handful of media clippings from last June announcing her memoir and with quotes from the then CEO.
In what is sure to become increasingly heated if this goes to court, Deadline is told that despite her welcoming demeanor in front of the press, working with Alonso has been a challenge at House of Mouse at times.
Punitive schedule aside, an insider cited how Alonso will take days off to attend to his personal business affairs (read, producing Argentina 1985 Oscar-nominated film) and this ultimately led to somewhat of a backlog of Marvel movies and TV series in the post-production process, causing major delays in theatrical release dates. While many studios have experienced delays in post-production houses due to the pandemic, Disney has on several occasions postponed its bigger films ie. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor Love and thunder, Black Panther Wakanda forever and Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania and soonest The miracles. In the new cost-cutting, job-cutting era of Iger 2.0, consider VFX spending—which was primarily under Alonso’s domain—as one of those items that needs to be managed.
Whether or not that was meant to show Alonso the door is another matter entirely, likely heading for a payoff or trial at this rate.
The hiring of Hollywood forensics agent Glazer was first reported by Diversity.