Pixar Hit By A New Wave Of Job Cuts

There's no sugar-coating this. It's bad news, anyway you look at it. Disney has announced another wave of job cuts across the company. Several hundred employees have been let go in various departments, but this latest round of layoffs disproportionately affects the good folks at Pixar. The job cuts at the studio are concentrated in production and operations. Around 150 staff are affected.

The news must be particularly galling as Pixar is currently riding high on the huge success of Toy Story 5. Despite somewhat mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike, the film is headed towards the billion-dollar benchmark, and a new high for the franchise.

The cuts are being at least partially blamed on the performance of Hoppers. The Daniel Chong-directed comedy opened strong but failed to reach the heights of Pixar's biggest hits. It ended up grossing $389.5 million worldwide against an estimated $150 million budget. Factoring in marketing and promotion, the film just failed to break even. Which is a great shame for those who want to see more original animation.

Pixar's mixed fortunes over recent years are probably also to blame. High-profile flops like Lightyear and Elio certainly wouldn't have helped, even if they are balanced out by hits like Inside Out 2 and Elemental. Pixar also had a series of its films- Soul, Turning Red and Luca- switched to Disney Plus first releases. Some feel that this has had the effect of training audiences to watch Pixar films at home.

The cuts come in the context of an industry that is struggling to adapt to the modern world. Still trying - and mainly failing- to reach pre-pandemic numbers, the studios have turned to money-saving methods like job cuts and deleting content. Disney specifically has committed to a change in its priorities- supposedly concentrating on quality over quantity. And unfortunately, that means that fewer staff are required.

This follows an earlier round of redundancies at the corporation as recently as April. Around 1000 employees in marketing were axed, in what Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro described as a move to "streamline" operations. D'Amaro has not issued a statement on the new firings. This follows Pixar being hit by its biggest-ever job cuts just two years ago.

The animation industry is in a tough place right now, with cuts being made across the industry and work hard to find. And this is despite the fact that animation is one of the most consistently successful parts of the film industry. So to see animation artists treated as so disposable is very disappointing. But hardly surprising. Animation rarely gets the respect it deserves.

Our thoughts are with those who have been affected in this latest wave of job cuts- or one of the previous ones. We hope you quickly land on your feet! 

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