For her part, Ms. Carney has made it clear to Disney that she would like to return the focus of her career to New York, where her two young children attend school under the care of her former husband. Disney and Ms. Carney declined to comment, but Disney insiders expect her to leave or shift to a lesser role sooner rather than later.

Ms. Carney is not a household name, but she holds what is perhaps Hollywood’s most influential marketing position because it includes selling films worldwide from, in addition to Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Mr. Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studios. Should she depart, it may say more about the insularity of the movie industry and its resistance to innovation than her marketing talents, which by many accounts are considerable.

“Film is the single most difficult industry for an outside marketer to crack,” said Peter Sealey, a former Columbia Pictures marketing chief who co-wrote the book “Not on My Watch: Hollywood vs. the Future.” He would know: he was a star marketer at Coca-Cola, which sent him to Hollywood after it bought Columbia in 1982. It was a rocky transition, but he lasted six years with support from Coke — better results than marketers brought in by studios over the years from Burger King and McDonald’s.

“It’s a clubby, inbred culture that still operates on instinct over research and an almost religious adherence to this-is-how-we-do-it tenets,” Mr. Sealey added.

Studios like Disney have an authentic desire to rein in runaway advertising costs and innovate with new types of marketing. They have no choice. Global advertising now costs at least $150 million for a major event film, but DVD sales continue to decline and attendance at North American theaters is at a 16-year low. Simultaneously, the traditional way of turning out a broad audience — TV commercials — has been undercut by the splintering of television viewing.