Rumors of layoffs at Pixar Animation Studios have been circulating for months, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, they have finally arrived. The company’s management, founded by Steve Jobs and acquired by Disney in 2006, has just notified its employees about the staff reductions. In total, 14% of the total workforce will be laid off, the largest restructuring in Pixar’s history.
In total, about 175 employees have just been laid off. Before the cuts, the studio had around 1,300 workers. These layoffs are part of Disney CEO Bob Iger’s mandate to refocus on quality rather than streaming content production, a priority of former CEO Bob Chapek. Disney executives have discussed on several occasions the need to refocus on quality, claiming that creative teams were stretched too thin to feed the streaming services.
A change that can be for the better
Since January of this year, Pixar employees knew that layoffs were coming. However, the reductions turned out to be less than the 20% that some media outlets reported. Layoffs, however, are not exclusive to Pixar; Disney made cuts throughout the company last year, but those at Pixar were delayed due to production schedules.
Under the direction of Pete Docter, Pixar will focus on feature films instead of direct-to-streaming series, with the exception of Win or Lose, scheduled to debut this year. During the pandemic, Pixar suffered when the Chapek regime sent Luca, Soul, and Turning Red directly to Disney+, despite cinemas starting to reopen. In addition, Lightyear, their first post-COVID theatrical release, was a major failure.
However, Pixar had good news last year with Elemental, which grossed nearly $500 million worldwide. There are also high expectations for Inside Out 2, which will be released on June 14 in North America, and other upcoming films such as Elio in 2025 and Toy Story 5 in 2026.
