An IGN report about Pixar is starting to making the rounds.
There’s lots of inside info here, a lot of it having to do with the making of “Inside Out 2.” According to multiple sources, Pixar apparently fired employees before Inside Out 2’s release so they would not be able to qualify for their bonus for working on the film.
The laid-off employees were asked not to come to the office to pick up belongings so the remaining employees didn’t “feel awkward.” One former employee said “when we were told the day we were laid off that the bonus is only for active employees, I sobbed.”
Another pointed out the irony of working on a movie about mental health, only to have their health insurance stripped away.
The report then goes on to tackle the failure of Pixar’s “Lightyear,” which Disney leadership reportedly put a large part of the blame on that infamous same-sex kiss which had the film getting banned in most Muslim countries, and resulted in China’s request to remove the scene.
A relentless number of notes were then given to animators to make Inside Out 2’s Riley come across as “less gay” in the sequel to avoid any of the backlash Disney encountered on “Lightyear.”
Disney now believes there were consequences in adding gay content to “Lightyear,” and trying to sell it to conservative America, especially when the backlash ended up reaching mainstream news. It came to the point where even congressmen and senators started debating the gay content in “Lightyear.”
However, it’s a stretch to think that the same-sex kiss was what doomed “Lightyear.” What Disney fails to realize is that it just wasn’t a good movie, and the reviews were mediocre.