The man who’s overseen Disney movies for the last decade or so is retiring, in a period of major change for the studio.
You may not have heard of the man, but Alan Horn is someone who’s had a huge influence over blockbuster cinema these past 20 years. During his time at Warner Bros, he was the one who homed in on a strategy that saw the studio make fewer movies, but veer towards bigger ones. The Harry Potter movies were on his watch.
In 2011 though, Warner Bros ended his tenure at the studio, and that’s when Disney moved in to snap him up. In his memoir, outgoing Disney boss Bob Iger describes Horn as his best-ever hire. It’s not difficult to see why. When Horn joined Disney, it was struggling with films such as
John Carter and
The Lone Ranger.
Horn oversaw a strategy that saw the studio significantly cut its blockbuster output and, replicating even more what he’d tried at Warner Bros, place a smaller number of much bigger bets. It works spectacularly, with Disney now the dominant studio in terms of box office performance, and the franchises that it’s acquired and built up.
Horn’s retirement, at the age of 78, is thus a very big deal for the studio. At a time too when Bob Iger himself has passe the baton on and retired. Two of the key creatives in arguably Disney’s most successful decade are now departing the studio.
The early word is that Horn won’t be directly replaced, given the autonomy now enjoyed by the heads of the studio’s many subdivisions, such as Lucasfilm and Marvel. But his run of success is going to take some topping…
Deadline
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
Related Stories
- Warwick Davis calls out Disney for deleting Willow from Disney+
Actor Warwick Davis has shared a behind-the-scenes photo from Willow, which was deleted from Disney+ last year. And he’s not very happy about it either.
Disney+ started deleting its own content in 2023. A lot of great films and TV shows were axed and aren’t available anywhere else, which feels thoroughly unfair for the people involved [...]
- The top 45 must-see films of 2025
Looking ahead to 2025, here are the 45 films of all genres - from horror to comedy to drama and more - we reckon you really shouldn't miss.
Special mentions:
Firstly, the movies you won’t be seeing, but want to namecheck. Our rules were that we didn’t want to include films that had screened, but not made [...]
- The three movies Disney made instead of Wicked
Wicked’s road to the screen has been a long one, but has Disney been reacting to it since the musical first hit Broadway?
NB: This feature contains spoilers for Wicked Part One, Oz The Great And Powerful, and Maleficent.
Long before Wicked became a Broadway smash-hit in 2003, Disney had a history of near misses with the [...]
- The Creator, Barbarian, The Banshees Of Inisherin and Amsterdam are all gone from Disney+
Four major recent releases from Disney have disappeared from the Disney+ streaming service in the UK - one of which is now exclusive elsewhere.
I’m going to have a go at trying to work out how the ins and outs of Hollywood studios go, but still confess it baffles me a bit. Back when Disney acquired [...]
- The Abyss | The BBFC defends (again) its decision not to classify the film
Disney tried to re-release The Abyss in UK cinemas it's effectively been confirmed, but pulled the plan due to a lack of BBFC certificate.
The long wait for James Cameron’s The Abyss to get a 4K remaster and fresh physical media release finally ended around a year ago – but not if you’re in the UK. [...]
