The Marvel cinematographic universe has experienced a decline in recent times, but overall, it is still a giant franchise of several billion dollars belonging to Disney – a company which we would expect that it can support occasional losses without problem. However, as revealed by a quick glance at the credits of a great film, a major Hollywood company is rarely a uniform monolith. Rather, it is a sprawling sphere of small entities made up of various individuals and companies pulling more or less in the same direction.
This means that all these entities are not as large and financially safe as the parent company. However, it is surprising to learn that one of the small companies adjacent to the MCU has now closed its doors, despite a successful Marvel program to its credit. According to the documents obtained by Forbes, this company is Axis Studios, an Scottish animation house which provided the visuals of the breathtaking mini-series “Eyes of Wakanda” of 2025. The spin-off “Black Panther” was a critical darling that has risen to the top of the most watched shows on Disney+. It was also a simple cherry on the cake of the vast CV of the studio, which makes the fall particularly discouraging.
Axis Studios has worked on many excellent projects, but in the end, that was not enough.
If the name Axis Studios tells you something, it is perhaps because many consumers of popular culture have fallen on the work of the studio at some point. He worked on video games like “League of Legends”, “Halo” and “Gears of War”, as well as on many television shows, including the essential anthology program of Netflix “Love Death + Robots”. He was also known for his visual effects and his work as a trailer.
Despite such a beautiful CV, the reason for the fall of Axis Studios was ultimately simple: money problems. The studio was not large enough to manage a large number of projects at the same time, which meant that its income depended on important individual wages. These wages were fewer and fewer after the double impact of the COVVI-19 pandemic-which led the video game industry to tighten its outsourcing belt-and the 2023 Hollywood strikes, which in turn had harmful consequences on the production calendars.
While the work was still coming, the increase in costs and various delays began to harm the cash flows of Axis Studio. The situation was won until the summer of 2024, it was clear that the bankruptcy was the only viable solution. The studio fell with more than $ 2.5 million in the red. Unfortunately, $ 608,000 in this heavy sum is due to its 151 former employees, who will probably never see this money.
