Disney Says Figuring Out “How AI Is Incorporated Into Movie Production” Will Be Major Focus For New CCO Dana Walden
With Disney’s recent changing of the guard forcing them to reassess their forward operating plans, the House of Mouse has confirmed that one of newly appointed CCO Dana Walden main duties will be figuring out how to incorporate AI into the company’s movie production pipelines.
During a recent interview with Variety’s Cynthia Littleton, Disney board member James Gorman, himself described as “a steady hand who steered the selection process with equanimity and a distance from the key players that gave him perspective on what Disney needed most,” was asked as to his thoughts on the key areas of focus for Dana in this new film and TV job should be”.
In turn, Gorman began by clarifying, “I don’t want to presume. I will let Dana speak for herself when she gets settled in the job, it’s probably only fair,” before positing, “But obviously how AI is incorporated into movie production, how to continue to generate the kinds of margins that others in the industry have across streaming, ensuring that the storytelling that we do through our IP.”
“Her job as Chief Creative Officer for the whole company, we’d like to ensure that that storytelling goes to all aspects of the company, through our merchandise, through our parks experiences, through our cruises, not just in theaters and and on streaming channels. So, I think she’ll be a great partner for [newly appointed CEO] Josh [D’Amaro]. I think Dana’s a fabulous executive. And it’s just reminding everybody that the heart and center of this company is the magical experiences that we create.”
Notably, such willingness to adopt AI technology is nothing new for the Disney organization.
Not only has the entertainment conglomerate publicly confirmed that they intend to “embrace the promise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a tool to benefit our employees, customers, guests, and creators,” but they also struck a massive, 1$ billion investment deal at the end of last year to allow OpenAI’s Sora image generator “to generate short, user-prompted social videos that can be viewed and shared by fans, drawing from a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars, including costumes, props, vehicles, and iconic environments.”
Likewise, as part of Disney’s $1.5 billion investment into Fortnite developer Epic Games, the popular battle royale hosted a limited-time event wherein players could communicate with an AI Darth Vader, as brought to life by a machine-generated rendition of James Earl Jones’ legally licensed voice and which used said technology to tailor replies to players’ specific inquiries.
Further, generative AI technology has already founds its way into the Marvel Studios production pipeline, with both the opening credits to the Secret Invasion series and various art assets featured in the recent Wonder Man series having been made via the use of digital prompts rather than hand-crafted by actual artists.
And in the House of Mouse’s most recent earnings call, as held in November 2025, outgoing CEO Bob Iger confirmed plans to foster a more “engaged experience” for Disney Plus users by allowing them “to create user-generated content and to consume user-generated content—mostly short-form—from others.”
All said and done, that someone within Disney’s upper echelon would turn their attention to ‘AI movie making’ is less of a surprise and more of an inevitability – But it still doesn’t change the fact that the move stands to further erode the already-low production standards of modern Hollywood.
