Just about three months ago, Pixar unexpectedly announced that The Good Dinosaur’s director, Bob Peterson would no longer be the director of the prehistoric feature. Two weeks later, Pixar also announced that the film needed more time to develop and they pushed the film back from its original May 30, 2014 release date to November 25, 2015. The news of the directing and date change, although shocking, still left us with an open mind as Ed Catmull (Pixar’s President) reminded us, “Nobody ever remembers the fact that you slipped a film, but they will remember a bad film. Our conclusion was that we were going to give the film [The Good Dinosaur] some more time.”
Unfortunately today, the news for the project doesn’t get much better as Pixar announced via the LA Times (spotted by The Pixar Times) that they would be laying off employees as part of the delayed film. A Pixar representative said, “At Pixar, we are constantly re-evaluating the creative and business needs of our studio, with the release date change of ‘The Good Dinosaur,’ we have realigned our production and support priorities, which includes a small reduction in our staffing levels.”
Although the word “small” is a relative term, the LA Times article also noted that a source close to the studio felt that, “The layoffs affect less than 5% of the company’s 1,200-person workforce“. If that were the case, that would equal approximately 60 employees. It is also undetermined from which departments the staffing reductions were made – we’ll be sure to update the post if/as we learn more details on this news.
The reduction of approximately 60 employees from Pixar’s Emeryville, California campus comes about a month-and-a-half after Pixar chose to close its Vancouver branch of approximately 100 employees. Let us know your thoughts and reactions by leaving a comment below or chatting about it further in the Pixar Post Forum.
I guess I'm not quite seeing the connection. Is Pixar saying that by laying 60 people off, we have more time to create a better movie, but less people to do it? Seems strange.
Hey Bryan – it is an interesting move for sure. You are mirroring a similar sentiment to a comment we received on Twitter as well in which they said that lay offs are going to make the film go faster. It will be interesting to see what additional news we may or may not hear. As with most business decisions, there's not much said past the initial announcement.