Since Bob Iger’s Return as the Walt Disney Company’s CEO, Disney has been going through changes.
©Reuters | Disney CEO Bob Iger
Iger announced $5.5 billion in spending cuts, which included plans for over 7,000 job cuts throughout the company. We’ve already seen a few rounds of these cuts happen, but recently another 75 job cuts have been made–and this time some major Pixar executives were affected.
According to Reuters, on May 23rd, two of those positions laid off were executives who worked on Lightyear, which was widely considered to be a box office flop. These layoffs are part of 75 eliminated positions within Walt Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios — “the first significant job cuts [at this studio] in a decade.”
©Pixar
Angus MacLane, a 26-year animator who directed Lightyear, was one of the two Pixar executives laid off in this round. While Lightyear was not the success it was hoped to be, MacLane has been a part of the creative team who worked on successful films such as Toy Story 4 and Coco. The other executive let go was a producer for Lightyear, Galyn Susman. Susman has also been in the business for a long time, having been “at Pixar since the release of the original Toy Story movie in 1995.” Disney also let go of Michael Agulnek, Vice President of Worldwide Publicity at Pixar since 2015.
©Pixar
Although the job cuts don’t account for a major portion of the studio’s roughly 1,200-employee base, Pixar is known for creating the characters and franchises that make Disney a fair amount of money. Disney actually acquired Pixar to help with its own struggling animation department in 2006. So what happened here? Earlier this year a Pixar executive shared thoughts on what went wrong with Lightyear in particular. But, to put it into context, the film had a reported budget of $200 million and only brought in $226.7 million in worldwide ticket sales.
Buzz Lightyear
In contrast, Pixar’s Incredibles 2 brought in $1.2 billion in worldwide box office sales, even with a similar budget to Lightyear. The latter, which “could not be shown in 14 Middle Eastern and Asian countries because of its depiction of a same-sex relationship,” also had mixed reviews.
©Pixar
According to Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter, there was a “disconnect between what people wanted/expected” and what the movie actually provided. “When they hear Buzz, they’re like, great, where’s Mr. Potato Head and Woody and Rex? And then we drop them into this science fiction film that they’re like, What?”
Woody and Jessie
Toy Story 5 is in the works so we will get to see all of our favorite characters again. But, unfortunately, Disney’s layoffs have reached the Lightyear team. We’ll keep an eye out for any more updates, so stay tuned to DFB for more.
Learn more about Toy Story 5 here.
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Never saw it, but the Buzz backstory was no match for the Toy Story gang.
I’m hoping this is a signal of bringing back accountability for Disney’s Box office losing streak that has been sorely lacking. But it doesn’t seem to be happening (yet) to the producers & directors for the other box office failures.
I’m reading this week that Indiana Jones is forecast to only earn $60 M in its opening weekend and Elemental is also going to be a disappointment probably losing money. Seems like a great opportunity for Disney to rid themselves of some other poor performers at the executive level.
Good! Bad decisions have consequences! Disney did this to themselves for pushing an agenda contrary to the principles most customers believe in. They will learn or not!
It’s not a good movie but shouldn’t be the reason for letting two talented people go. It probably isn’t the reason. I hope they make better movies going forward, though.