Pixar's Lays Off 14% of its Employees

Last year, Walt Disney's Pixar Animation Studios had already eliminated 75 positions including key creatives behind box office disappointment “Lightyear,” sources told Reuters.

THR is now reporting that 14% of Pixar’s employees have just been laid off as part of Disney’s cost-cutting measures. It will be the biggest restructuring in Pixar's history.

These are the significant job cut. I guess that’s what happens when most of the talents are gone, and their recent releases couldn’t compare to the studio's best works. John Lasseter is also sorely missed. Back in 2018, Lasseter was fired for misbehavior which left some of his staff feeling “disrespected and uncomfortable.” He’s now at Skydance

Fixing Pixar should be a priority at Disney. Firstly, they dumped their movies (“Soul,” “Turning Reds” and “Luca”) straight to Disney+ during the pandemic, which devalued the brand and trained audiences to ignore their theatrical releases. They tried re-releasing them this year, but they barely made any money at the box-office.

Add to that the issues they’ve had on the creative side: none of their recent releases have really hit the cultural zeitgeist since 2017’s “Coco.” They somehow need to rekindle the magic that we felt with “Up!” “Ratatouille,” “Finding Nemo,” “”Inside Out,” “Toy Story 3,” “The Incredibles,” and, especially, their seminal masterpiece, “WALL-E.”

The inventive nature of the above classics has gone away. It’s all surface-level stuff now. They are making over-stylized films with none of the risk-taking involved. The last several movies have been nothing more than cynical and commercially minded attempts to hit specific emotional buttons.

Coming up next for Pixar is this summer’s “Inside Out 2,” afterwards it’ll be “Elio,” “Ducks” and “Toy Story 5.”