To say that 2023 was a rough year for Disney box office-wise would be an understatement. Despite the fact that the studio giant released films that had really good audience reviews — like Haunted Mansion— people just weren’t going to the theaters to see them. Then, there were the films that were just total flops, like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
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Unfortunately, it wasn’t just Disney films that struggled. Marvel and Pixar – which are both owned by Disney – have been having their own problems. The studio known for game-changing movies like Toy Story (1995), Finding Nemo (2003), UP (2009), Monsters Inc. (2001), and Coco (2017), is having trouble figuring out what audiences want to see.
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Pixar only released one feature-length film in theaters in 2023 — the critically acclaimed Elemental. The animation studio also released new episodes of Dug Days — the UP spinoff — onto Disney+.
Despite Pixar’s stellar reputation, it looks like the company is headed for layoffs.
According to a report from Reuters, the studio has wrapped up work on many of its Disney+ shows and now has too many people on staff.
Pixar Animation Studios is set to cut jobs as the studio has completed production on some shows and now has more staff than it needs, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Thursday.
In June last year, Pixar eliminated 75 positions including those of two executives behind box office disappointment “Lightyear”, Reuters reported, in what was at the time the studio’s first significant job cuts in a decade.
Earlier this year, TechCrunch reported that Pixar could lay off as much as 20% of its staff, but the Reuters insider disputed that claim. They said that Pixar does not yet know how many staffers it will need to lay off.
2023 was also supposed to see the release of a new Pixar series, Win or Lose. The series tells the story of a middle school co-ed softball team. Each episode will tell the story through the eyes of a different player or parent. However, back in November, Disney decided to delay the show’s release. It is now set to premiere sometime in 2024.
Win or Lose received really great reviews when the first episode premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. So, it was a surprise when Disney decided to scrap the original premiere date.
2024 will see the premiere of Pixar’s highly-anticipated sequel, Inside Out 2. Three other Pixar films will also be premiering in theaters for the first time — Soul (2020), Luca (2021), and Turning Red (2022). All three movies came out during the pandemic, so they were released straight onto Disney+.
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Neither Disney nor Pixar commented on the impending layoffs.
What is your favorite Pixar film? Let us know in the comments!
