Sean Bailey

Not to be confused with Shaun Bailey.

For other uses, see Sean Bailey (disambiguation).

Sean Bailey is an American film and television producer. He served as president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production from 2010 to 2024.^[2][3][4]

Sean Bailey
Bailey at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2010
Occupation(s)	Film and television producer, media executive, entrepreneur
Years active	1998–present
Title	President of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production (2010–2024)
Spouse	Charmaine Bailey[1]
Children	2
Parent(s)	Jay Bailey (father) Mary K. Bailey (mother) Frances Arnold (former step-mother)

Career

LivePlanet and early multimedia ventures

In the early 2000s, Bailey co-founded LivePlanet with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Chris Moore.^[5] The company was venture-backed by Redpoint Ventures and Accel Partners.

Bailey and Affleck co-created Push, Nevada and the company's projects included the Emmy Award-nominated Project Greenlight. LivePlanet also produced General Manager, one of the first original entertainment projects commissioned for the MSN web portal, which featured fans running a real-world sports team, The Schaumburg Flyers, through the internet.^[6] Bailey also produced the films The Emperor's Club, Best Laid Plans, Matchstick Men, and Gone Baby Gone.^[7]

From 2004 to 2008, Bailey served as chairman and board member of LivePlanet while partnering with The Walt Disney Company to launch Ideology Inc, which produced Tron: Legacy, the sequel to the 1982 film Tron.^[8] Bailey also oversaw the platinum-selling Daft Punk soundtrack for Tron: Legacy and contributed to the creation of Tron Lightcycle Power Run, now a major attraction at Shanghai Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.^[9]

Bailey also co-wrote (with Ted Griffin) the original screenplay for the 2016 film Solace, starring Anthony Hopkins, Colin Farrell, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.^[10]

Walt Disney Studios

In January 2010, Bailey was named president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Production,^[11] overseeing all live-action development, production, and operations for Walt Disney Pictures.^[2]

Under Bailey, Disney pursued a tentpole film strategy, which included an expanded slate of large-budget films, including franchise sequels, original films, and live-action adaptations of their animated films. The studio found success with the latter type of films, which began with the commercial success of Alice in Wonderland (2010), and continued with Maleficent (2014), Cinderella (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Aladdin (2019), The Lion King (2019), and The Little Mermaid (2023). Bailey has overseen the release of five films that have surpassed $1 billion in global box office making Disney the top-grossing studio worldwide for multiple consecutive years: Alice in Wonderland, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, as well as The Lion King, which earned nearly $1.7 billion worldwide.^[12][13] The division has also produced reimaginings of other fairy-tale and classic stories such as Oz The Great and Powerful (2013), Into the Woods (2014), and Cruella.^[14][15] Despite the renewed focus on tentpole films, the studio continued to produce smaller, "brand-deposit" films, such as The Muppets (2011) and Saving Mr. Banks (2013), a period drama which was the first time the studio had depicted its namesake co-founder onscreen.^[16]

Bailey was also part of the launch team for Disney's streaming service Disney+ in November 2019, helping oversee the initial deployment and content strategy for the platform. Under his supervision, the studio's early slate of originals included Lady and the Tramp, Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, Stargirl, Togo, Rise, Hocus Pocus 2, Enchanted follow-up Disenchanted, and Peter Pan & Wendy.^[17][18][19]

Bailey is noted for transforming Disney's live-action film slate with female-led tentpoles featuring empowered, contemporary heroines and expanding representation in these roles. Notable examples include Halle Bailey as Ariel in The Little Mermaid, Yara Shahidi as Tinker Bell in Peter Pan & Wendy, Storm Reid in A Wrinkle in Time, and Rachel Zegler as Snow White in the studio's 2025 live-action reimagining of the Disney film. Throughout his tenure, he has also championed female directors for major projects, including Ava DuVernay, Mira Nair, and Julia Hart.^[20]

On February 26, 2024, Bailey stepped down as president and was replaced by David Greenbaum, who formerly co-led Searchlight Pictures. Bailey remains a producer and executive music producer for Tron: Ares, featuring a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails.^[21][22]

Board service and affiliations

In 2012, Bailey was named to the board of Sundance Institute, where he serves as vice chair.^[23][24] In 2015, he joined the Board of Trustees at Caltech, also serving on its JPL Committee.^[25][26]

Other ventures

Bailey is a founding investor of Teremana Tequila, founded by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.^[27]

Personal life

Bailey is the son of Jay Bailey, who was a biochemical engineer and professor at California Institute of Technology^[28] and Mary K. Bailey.^[29] For a time, he was the stepson of Frances Arnold, a biochemical engineer, California Institute of Technology faculty member, and Nobel Laureate.^[15] He attended the University of Colorado Boulder from 1987 to 1991.^[30] Bailey is married to Charmaine Bailey and they have two children.