Disney does not make distinctions between years of experience or merits in the animation company, nor if you saved a classic like toy story 2.
It is no secret to anyone that various studios in Hollywood are going through difficult times. Beyond the writers’ strike, the companies face an uncertain future in economic terms. And this has forced extreme measures to be taken in order to save as much money as possible. As an example are the cuts at Pixar, which have already claimed the position of numerous important talents.
In accordance with Reuters, the animation company was the new victim of the cuts recommended by Disney. The amount to be saved is 5 thousand 500 million dollars (MDD)so the house of Mickey Mouse saw the need to fire 7 thousand employees. Among them are Angus McLanedirector of lightyearand Galyn Susmanwho helped Disney and Pixar not to lose the second installment of the toy saga.
The anecdote reveals that, in 1998, a company employee made a mistake and deleted almost all the movie files, which was about to be completed. Fortunately, Susman, who was serving as technical director, was working from home and had a backup copy of the film on her computer. Although she had to work hard to perfect the material and bring it to the levels it was at, it was much easier than starting from scratch. In more recent years, she has served as a producer on toy story 4 and lightyear.
MacLane’s case is a bit more complicated. The animator began working for Pixar in 1997, and his first collaboration was for Bugs, a miniature adventure. Nearly a decade later he became animation director for WALL-Eand directed short films related to that tape and Toy Story. In 2016 he gave Disney and Pixar one of their biggest hits: Finding Dory. And while said sequel wasn’t loved by critics or audiences, it grossed over $1.029 million worldwide.
Such success made him the ideal candidate to lead the ambitious lightyear, which Disney and Pixar considered one of the strongest bets for last year. Unfortunately, the film offered nothing special and passed with much more pain than glory. With just $226.4 million dollars raised, it became one of the biggest flops of 2022, and recorded losses of more than $100. It doesn’t sound so complicated to understand why he ended up fired. An estimated 70 other Pixar executives also lost their contracts.
In addition to the layoffs, Disney has taken other measures. Just a few days ago, expensive and important productions such as Willow, Artemis Fowl and The one and only Ivan they abandoned Disney Plus as a way to save paying certain taxes. Rumors suggest that more titles will leave the platform at the end of this month.
So far, Angus MacLane and Galyn Susman have avoided commenting on their recent layoffs.
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