Pixar Reduces 14% Of Staff Due To Disney Content Spending Cuts – Update

Dade Hayes
3 min read
3

UPDATE: The Pixar Animation Studios cuts we previously told you about months ago are now commencing, according to sources familiar with the moves. The number of those let go is around 175, or 14% of the staff.

The pullback is largely due to Disney+ scaling back on direct-to-consumer series. Bob Iger has signaled the need for a more disciplined approach to streaming since returning as CEO in November 2022.

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Since Covid, Pixar has yet to produce a bona-fide all-quadrants hit, though the animation division has also been hampered by distribution moves that sent three consecutive releases straight to streaming. Heading into summer, all eyes are on Inside Out 2, which openis over Fathers Day weekend, June 14 to 16. Director Kelsey Mann’s sequel is among a group of big movies expected to work this summer, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars.

PREVIOUS, JAN. 12: Pixar Animation Studios is planning to reduce its workforce in the coming months, an insider confirmed to Deadline, as part of overall content spending trims at Disney.

An initial report on the planned staff cuts by TechCrunch indicated it could affect up to 20% of the overall workforce, but the source pushed back on that estimate. No specifics or timeline for the reduction have yet been determined.

The pullback is related to an easing of the studio’s production workflow, which went into overdrive under former CEO Bob Chapek. The ex-boss not only put three straight Pixar films onto Disney+ without a theatrical release, but he also ordered episodic series, which the animation studio had never previously done. Franchise films haven’t always gone smoothly (for every Toy Story 4, there has been a Lightyear or Cars 2) but episodic fare is a whole new realm. While Pixar has historically been structured differently than other animation houses, with fewer project-based workers coming on, the drive to produce streaming series worthy of the Pixar name has boosted the workforce to around 1,300.

Pixar’s first original series, Win or Lose, is slated to premiere on Disney+ later this year. The company’s feature film output is continuing, with Inside Out 2 on deck for summer, though it’s been a tougher go for the company’s slate in recent years. Elemental, which premiered last June, opened softly but racked up a cumulative gross of almost $500 million worldwide. Given the hefty budgets at Pixar, whose films take years to produce and often have budgets north of $200 million, the release model is undergoing a re-evaluation. Staffing is a component of that, the Pixar source told Deadline.

Disney declined to comment.

Bob Iger, who took over for Chapek in November 2022, has presided over extensive cost-cutting. In three rounds of layoffs in 2023, thousands of staffers exited, including the first in many years at Pixar, and cost savings totaled $7.5 billion. Total content spending in fiscal 2024 is projected to be $25 billion, down from $27 billion in the prior year.

Disney has been under pressure from investors to boost its lagging stock price. While linear TV challenges and the uncertain economics of streaming have certainly weighed on shares, the surprisingly spotty performance of the film studio, including mainstays like Marvel and Pixar, has also been a drag.

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