Pixar Animation Studios’ “Inside Out 2” became the highest-grossing animated film of all time this summer, surpassing “Frozen II” and potentially kickstarting a new era for the studio. However, laid-off employees are speaking out about problems within Pixar during production.
‘Inside Out 2’ Crunch
IGN spoke to 10 former Pixar employees about the company’s layoffs and the “largest crunch in the studio’s history” to create “Inside Out 2.” Many at the studio saw the film as a “life or death situation,” believing Pixar would fall apart if it wasn’t a success.
Pixar saw a rough few years, in part thanks to COVID-19 and the release of some films exclusively on Disney+. “Elemental” and “Lightyear” were released theatrically but didn’t see big numbers.
“That was the pressure felt by everybody,” one source told IGN. “‘We need this movie to succeed because we won’t have a studio [otherwise].’ And that is the pressure that everybody felt the whole time. The whole time. Even now, I think people are gone, still feeling that pressure of like, ‘Oh my God, we did it. We did it.’”
Though a senior executive of Pixar told IGN that the crunch at the end of “Inside Out 2” production wasn’t different from other films, employees report a “rough” internal culture of people who felt like “I can’t do this anymore.”
I think for a month or two, the animators were working seven days a week. Ridiculous amounts of production workers, just people being tossed into jobs they’d never really done before… It was horrendous.
A couple of sources note that they weren’t affected by the rush but they found that unusual. “It was odd to see some people on fire and some people with nothing to do,” one said.
Employees were paid overtime and workers were offered time off in return for their extra work, but sources said it could be hard to find the right time to take a vacation in the production schedule.
“[Pixar does] take care of us when we do have aches and pains,” one source said. “They throw everything at us to try to help. There’s really great health benefits, mental health. So it’s not like they’re not trying and they’re not offering things. But at the end of the day, I feel like the expectations and that ‘let’s just crunch and get it done,’ but then it goes on for months and months, it’s not sustainable.”
Pete Docter
Some complaints regard Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter. Docter directed and co-wrote the first “Inside Out” but is only credited as executive producer of the sequel, with Kelsey Mann in the director’s seat. However, multiple sources state he stepped in as an uncredited co-director.
Many didn’t have anything negative to say. One source said, “I mean, you saw the end result of that. [‘Inside Out 2’] made a billion dollars at the box office. That was a direct result of Pete’s involvement. Pete’s a genius. Nobody can dispute this.”
But other sources said there is a “god-like worship” of the CCO, apparently a holdover from John Lasseter’s time. The former Chief departed The Walt Disney Company after harassment accusations from fellow Pixar employees.
“You cannot do anything without Pete. Literally nothing,” a former employee said of the current executive. “And that creates a bottleneck.”
Making Riley ‘Less Gay’
A lot of us accepted the fact that we may never see a major gay character in a Pixar movie.
Sources say that when “Toy Story” spinoff “Lightyear” disappointed at the box office, Disney leadership put much of the blame on the film’s same-sex kiss. The moment was initially removed and then reinstated amid Disney’s controversial response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
One source told IGN, “It is, as far as I know, still a thing, where leadership, they’ll bring up Lightyear specifically and say, ‘Oh, Lightyear was a financial failure because it had a queer kiss in it.’ That’s not the reason the movie failed.”
One source said Pixar leadership is “uncomfortable” with LGBTQIA+ themes and several sources said this hesitance affected “Inside Out 2.” They recall hearing about continuous notes to make Riley, the film’s main character, seem “less gay.” There was reportedly particular care put into making the relationship between Riley and Val, an older girl that Riley idolizes, as platonic as possible. This included edits to the lighting and tone of certain scenes to remove any potential “romantic chemistry.”
One of IGN’s sources said Pixar was “just doing a lot of extra work to make sure that no one would potentially see them as not straight.”
‘Elio’
The issues within Pixar are affecting future films, too. “Elio” is now scheduled for release in June 2025, after missing its original March 2024 release date.
Docter said the film’s delay was due to the actors’ strike in 2023. But IGN’s sources say it was also due to major story changes. They also said many of its artists were moved to work on “Inside Out 2.”
One source who had pleasant experiences on prior projects said they felt a shift when they worked on “Elio.”
It was rushed work, paranoid work, paranoid leadership, mixed messaging. You’re just working 24/7. And so after awhile, your body just starts breaking down.
Multiple sources say there is low morale from Pixar’s remaining employees and that Pixar has taken the wrong lessons from the success of “Inside Out 2.”
“They learned nothing,” one source said. “And that’s the feedback I’m still getting when I’m just reaching out to [current employees]. Right now, everyone’s on ‘Elio.’ Things are exactly the same, how they were before. Everybody’s working crazy hours to get ‘Elio’ fixed.”
Pixar Layoffs
“The day that the layoffs happened was like a funeral. There was weeping and crying in the atrium.”
Pixar laid off 14% of their workforce in early 2024, just a few weeks before the release of “Inside Out 2.” This meant that many of those who worked on “Inside Out 2” wouldn’t receive a bonus from the film’s success. To qualify, an employee had to have worked on a project for a certain amount of time and be employed when the bonuses were distributed. Depending on the project’s success, these bonuses can range from one week to ten weeks’ extra pay.
“To be told by our HR reps that we were not going to qualify for that bonus felt like an ultimate ‘f*ck you’ from Disney,” one source said.
It really crushed a lot of us. When we were told the day we were laid off that it (the bonus) is only for active employees, I sobbed.
Pixar’s base pay is relatively low for the Bay Area. Pixar employees are not unionized under The Animation Guild (TAG) even though Walt Disney Animation Studios’ employees are, leading to lower pay.
“And the way they kind of excuse that is with these bonuses,” a source explained. “They’re like, ‘yeah, we pay less, but here’s this huge bonus you might get.’”
“We work all year for that bonus,” another said. “That is what partially makes working at Pixar worth it… we depend on that.”
I would venture that at least 95% of the people that got laid off are financially f*cked right now.
On the day of the layoffs, Pixar locked affected employees out of the network — meaning they couldn’t access work to create demo reels, personal files, or benefit information. Key card access was restricted to off-hours so laid-off employees wouldn’t be picking up their belongings while remaining employees were there.
This was not standard practice for Pixar, multiple sources said. One recalled crying at the gates, feeling “completely shut out physically, not just network-wise, just physically shut out without any communication.”
“There was no one from HR or anything supporting us or guiding us,” another source said. “It was all mixed messaging, and that was super frustrating and emotional and just adding to the whole stress of all of it.”
Former employees report bittersweet feelings regarding the success of “Inside Out 2.” Some can’t bring themselves to watch the movie.
I was a fan before I worked there, so it’s really hard to see how the sausage gets made now and be like, ‘oh, can I ever just be a fan again?’ I don’t know.
“Inside Out 2” will be on Disney+ later this month.
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