Pixar Animation Studios, despite riding high on the success of summer blockbuster “Toy Story 5,” was hit particularly hard in a wave of companywide layoffs Tuesday at Disney.
A Disney spokesperson confirmed that the media conglomerate is cutting several hundred jobs across certain corporate functions. Those include job cuts at ESPN, many related to the integration of NFL Network; Disney Entertainment Television; and Disney’s studios. The majority of the layoffs on the studios side are within Pixar and majority of cuts in the TV group are at National Geographic.
The Disney employees who are losing their jobs were informed Tuesday morning.
Disney in April cut about 1,000 employees in marketing functions across Disney’s studios, TV networks, ESPN, product and technology, and corporate groups. At the time, newly appointed Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro said in a memo to employees, “Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney. Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs.”
The job cuts at Pixar are concentrated in production and operations. A source familiar with the layoffs said the changes reflect Pixar’s evolving needs related to production volume and the projects that are in process at the studio. More broadly, Walt Disney Studios has evolved its production strategy over the past three years to reduce overall volume and prioritize quality — with a focus on theatrical releases that feed into the company’s broader entertainment ecosystem (including streaming), with less produced directly for streaming.
Pixar has released two movies in 2026: this spring’s original adventure “Hoppers,” which had a strong opening but failed to match the box-office heights of prior Pixar greats; and this summer’s “Toy Story 5,” which is imminently crossing the billion-dollar mark and will end up as the highest-grossing of the franchise.
Though Pixar’s sequels, including 2024’s “Inside Out 2,” have electrified the box office, the animation studio has struggled since the pandemic to launch new properties. During COVID, several movies including “Soul,” “Luca” and “Turning Red” were sent directly to Disney+ and executives felt that inadvertently trained audiences to watch Pixar’s films at home.
Love Film & TV?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in music, film and TV in Australia and abroad.
Rebecca Rubin contributed to this article.
From Variety US