The layoff of 175 people – or 14% of the workforce – from Pixar animation studios, a Disney subsidiary, began on Tuesday May 21. The number of these dismissals is lower than what was initially anticipated when the entertainment giant, in early 2024, explained that it wanted to reduce Pixar’s costs.
In an internal letter consulted by The New York Times, Pixar Chairman Jim Morris explained to employees that the studio wanted “focus on films again”. Pixar, long untouchable in the Disney galaxy, found itself in difficulty after the failure of ” Buzz Lightning “a film released in 2022, which focused on one of the films main characters “Toy Story”. It ultimately only generated $226 million at the box office, on a budget of $200 million.
The next year, “Elementary” had also disappointed, with just under $500 million in box office revenue, for a roughly identical budget. At the same time, Pixar produced several animated series in order to strengthen the Disney + offering, during the launch of the platform, such as “Cars: On the Road”from the eponymous trilogy, or “Welcome to Doug’s”which features the dog from the film “Up there”.
Wave of layoffs
The studio hopes to regain success with the release of “Vice Versa 2”which will allow the viewer to once again follow the tribulations of Riley’s emotions, becoming a teenager, then “Elio”story of a little boy struggling to integrate into his school who finds himself ambassador of the Earth to extraterrestrial civilizations, scheduled for 2025.
Disney embarked on an all-out cost hunt last year, with the return of its former boss, Bob Iger, leading to the layoffs of more than 8,000 people – mainly in its media arms, including Disney +.
In the second quarter of its staggered financial year, the group announced that, for the first time, its streaming service was generating profits, after having only experienced losses since its launch in 2019.
Disney’s net profit, however, fell to $216 million, compared to $1.5 billion over the same period in 2023, mainly due to asset depreciation and despite a production of its turnover.