Amid a dismal financial year for the Walt Disney Company, Pixar Animation Studios is cutting 14 percent of its staff, 175 jobs, in an effort to make up for financial losses, Breitbart reports. This reduction in staff follows 75 previous layoffs which included two executives behind the failed Lightyear. Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger recently cited the company’s overenthusiastic embrace of streaming services as a factor in their financial woes, but the “woke” content put out by Pixar likely also added to the financial decline.
Pixar’s Lightyear, a film that could have been a success given its connection to the timeless hit Toy Story, ended up a big flop at the box office. Instead of just focusing on content kids like to enjoy, executives decided that featuring a same-sex kiss between two female characters was necessary, but many people were not on board with the agenda.
Elemental also initially struggled to draw an audience. The film features a non-binary character who uses “they/them” pronouns.
Still, Iger is pointing to Disney spending too much on drawing more subscribers to its streaming platform Disney+, saying that it caused them to lose billions of dollars.
“As we got into the streaming business in a very, very aggressive way, we tried to tell too many stories,” Iger said. “Basically, we invested too much, way ahead of possible returns. It’s what led to streaming ending up as a $4 billion loss.”
The latest layoffs are in addition to 7,000 workers being laid off globally for Disney, more than 3 percent of its total workforce. Iger shared earlier this year that more layoffs were expected as the company tries to remedy its financial struggle.