Walt Disney Announces 75 Job Cuts, Which Is The Most Significant In A Decade
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Pixar Animation Studios by Walt Disney has gotten rid of 75 positions. These positions include those belonging to two executives that are behind the “Lightyear” flop. The recent job cuts are the first significant job trims that have been reported at the studios in a decade.
Walt Disney announced 75 job cuts
The job cuts announced by the entertainment company include the director of the company, Angus MacLane. MacLane is a 26-year animator that was part of the senior executive creative team on some of the largest films, such as “Toy Story 4” and “Coco.”
The producer of Lightyear is known as Galyn Susman and is among the people that have departed from the company. Susman is one of the veteran employees at the company, having worked at Pixar since the release of the “Toy Story” film in 1995.
The recent job cuts at Pixar happened on May 23. The job cuts are part of a plan by Walt Disney to lay off employees. The Chief Executive for Walt Disney, Bob Iger, had earlier revealed the company’s plan to trim 7,000 jobs and reduce costs by $5.5 billion.
The restructuring announced by the company has resulted in significant changes. It led to the consolidation of the film and television groups under a single Disney entertainment unit. It also eliminated a division that was in charge of distributing the content at the company.
The recent job cuts are significantly small, considering that Pixar has a vast employee base of around 1,200. However, despite the cuts being small, they are still significant because of the role that the studio plans in generating the characters and the franchises that are behind the revenue numbers at Disney.
“Lightyear” failed to meet expectations
Pixar is one of the leading studios, whose massive popularity has been attributed to some of the leading cinematic franchises such as “Toy Story,” “The Incredibles” and “Cars.” However, “Lightyear” was released one year ago, with a reported budget being $200 million failed to perform as expected.
“Lightyear” generated modest revenues of $226.7 million in global ticket sales. Besides the low sales value, the franchise also attracted mixed criticism from the market. The franchise performed poorly compared to other releases.
The “Incredibles,” that was also released by Pixar in 2018, had a production budget that was similar to that of “Lightyear.” However, it reported significantly high ticket sales, with global box office sales of $1.2 billion.
One of the reasons why “Lightyear” failed to achieve much success was that it could not be shown across 14 Middle Eastern and Asian countries because of depicting same-sex relationships. The issue resulted in a negative impact on its box office performance. Disney has already announced layoffs across all divisions.
The last time that Pixar announced job cuts was in 2013. At the time, the studio announced the postponement of a 2015 film known as “The Good Dinosaur. It also laid off director Bob Peterson and around 30 positions.
