The Walt Disney Company’s new CEO, Josh D’Amaro, has further discussed the company’s $1.5 billion investment into Fortnite. During a recent Q&A, D’Amaro was asked about the partnership, saying people can expect extensive synergy with Disney’s other businesses, and this includes the possibility of premiering new movies within Fortnite.
“It’s not just gonna be one character. It could be a new film premiering there, it could be the place that you decide to book your next cruise vacation. You could participate in the Super Bowl in some way there,” D’Amaro said, as reported by Puck.
D’Amaro spearheaded Disney’s investment into Epic for the Fortnite project, and the incoming CEO wants to do more with gaming overall. It was recently reported that Disney was close to making even more gaming deals, but the search for a new CEO may have disrupted or delays these plans.
Movies have already been shown inside Fortnite, including Inception, The Prestige, and Batman Begins from filmmaker Christopher Nolan. These are not new movies, but Epic has already tested the waters of premiering new films in Fortnite with Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill short film The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge.
D’Amaro has said he sees himself as a risk-taker and that trying new things is essential to Disney’s ongoing success, so showing new movies inside Fortnite would certainly fit that bill. As for his Super Bowl comments, D’Amaro was likely referring to how Disney–via its ESPN and ABC subsidiaries–has the rights to Super Bowl 61 next year and that Fortnite could offer some kind of crossover. In terms of booking a cruise within Fortnite, it’s not hard to imagine how Fortnite could push people to consider a cruise with some kind of in-game activation.
D’Amaro currently runs Disney’s vast Disney Experiences team, which operates the parks and cruise units, as well as consumer products and video games. He will officially become CEO in March. He replaces Bob Iger, an executive who oversaw Disney’s blockbuster acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and Fox.
