Director and producer behind $200 million Toy Story flop ‘Lightyear’ among Disney layoffs
Walt Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios has eliminated 75 positions, including that of two executives behind box office flop Lightyear in what will be the studio’s first significant job cuts in a decade.
The cuts include Lightyear director Angus MacLane, a 26-year-old animator who was part of the senior creative team on acclaimed films like Toy Story 4 and Coco.
Michael Agulnek, Pixar’s vice president of global publicity since 2015, was also fired. Galyn Susman, a Lightyear producer, is also leaving the studio.
Susman had been with Pixar since the release of the original Toy Story movie in 1995 and was hailed as a hero at the company after she was revealed to have a backup copy of the Toy Story 2 movie on her home computer when the company accidentally deleted its own movie erase. version of its servers while the film was in the early stages of production.
The story was revealed in a tweet last year: “Someone at Pixar deleted all of Toy Story 2 and the backup didn’t work for a month, and the only reason we saw that movie was because someone on maternity leave had a copy. of it on her home computer. Her name is Galyn Susman and she is now the producer of the new Lightyear movie!’
Lightyear director Angus MacLane, a 26-year-old animator who was part of the senior creative team on acclaimed films like Toy Story 4 and Coco. So has departed producer Galyn Susman, who has been with Pixar since the release of the original Toy Story film in 1995.
Michael Agulnek, Pixar’s vice president of global publicity since 2015, was also fired
A system that is usually used to delete junk files had made a mistake, but the server accidentally started deleting files that were actively being used.
Oren Jacob, Pixar’s former technical director, explained how someone probably ran the command “at the root level of the project and the system recursively searched the file structure and worked its way out like a worm working its way out of the core of the project. an Apple.’
‘He [producer Larry Cutler] looked at the folder and it had about 40 files, and he looked again and it had four files. Then we saw sequences start to disappear,” he said The Next Internet.
Susman was on maternity leave, but had been given a home computer to continue working on the film. The computer contained an incomplete backup of the movie, but it was still better than an empty file directory.
Among those targeted in a round of layoffs was Angus MacLane, a 26-year-old veteran animator who was part of the senior creative team
Susman had been with Pixar since the release of the original Toy Story movie in 1995 and was hailed as a hero at the company after she was revealed to have a backup copy of the Toy Story 2 movie on her home computer when the company accidentally deleted its own movie erase. version of its servers
The current cuts, which took place May 23, are part of Walt Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger’s previously announced plan to cut 7,000 jobs and cut $5.5 billion in costs.
The restructuring combines the film and television groups into a single Disney Entertainment unit and eliminates a division in charge of distribution.
While small compared to Pixar’s workforce of about 1,200, the layoffs are significant because the studio is a creative force generating revenue-generating franchises and characters throughout Disney.
Pixar is famous for movie franchises including Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Cars.
But Lightyear, released a year ago with a reported budget of $200 million, grossed a modest $226.7 million in worldwide ticket sales and received a decidedly mixed reception.
Toy Story 4 was a Disney/Pixar comeback grossing $1.07 billion worldwide and becoming the eighth highest-grossing film of 2019
But Lightyear, released a year ago with a reported budget of $200 million, grossed a modest $226.7 million in worldwide ticket sales and received a decidedly mixed critical reception.
In contrast, in 2018, Pixar’s Incredibles 2, which reportedly had a similar production budget, had $1.2 billion worldwide box office sales.
Lightyear could not be screened in 14 countries in the Middle East and Asia due to its depiction of a same-sex relationship. This had an impact on its worldwide box office performance.
Disney has implemented layoffs in every division, including film and television, streaming services and theme parks.
The last time Pixar cut jobs was in 2013, after the studio delayed the release of the 2015 movie The Good Dinosaur and fired its director, Bob Peterson. About 30 positions were eliminated.
Disney acquired Pixar in 2006 to revive its struggling Disney animation.