By Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” has become not only the highest-grossing film of 2024 but the highest-grossing animated film of all time, and a major success for Disney, Pixar and those involved.
However, a new report at IGN has gone into the film’s making with ten former employees alleging pressure to make the film a hit for the flailing studio which hadn’t had a major hit in years. The film’s success was apparently seen as a ‘live or die’ moment.
The employees reportedly claim they were ‘left hung out to dry’ after the studio shed 14% of its staff in May – rendering them ineligible to receive a bonus in the wake of the film’s success. Notably, it’s said no-one on the executive team was let go.
One source says: “We work all year for that bonus. That is what partially makes working at Pixar worth it… we depend on that.” Pixar is reportedly outside union coverage with the base pay considered low for the area.
Some were said to be doing seven days a week for the last two months and there were: “ridiculous amounts of production workers, just people being tossed into jobs they’d never really done before… It was horrendous.”
It’s also alleged that there were a large amount of ‘last minute’ changes that required all sorts of tools to be developed on the fly. A senior executive at Pixar tells the outlet that crunch periods at the end of the film were “no different from those on many other films from the studio”.
The article’s sources claim the studio is ‘overly reliant’ on CCO Pete Docter to the point that “you cannot do anything without Pete. Literally nothing.” Despite the overreliance on him, those involved don’t have negative feelings toward Docter, one saying: “Pete’s a genius. Nobody can dispute this”.
Several sources also claim Pixar wanted to make “Inside Out 2” ‘less gay’ after a scene with a same-sex kiss was largely blamed for the box office failure of “Lightyear” by Disney leadership – as opposed to the numerous other issues with the film highlighted in reviews.
That led to edits to “Inside Out 2” that ‘ramped up’ post-WGA strike in September 2023. ‘Special care’ was put into making main character Riley’s relationship with supporting character Val as ‘platonic as possible’ and remove any hint of romantic chemistry – even going so far as to change the lighting and tone of scenes.
One source says: “[It was] just doing a lot of extra work to make sure that no one would potentially see them as not straight.”
Another source says some leadership was ‘uncomfortable’ with queer themes at large.
The combination of “the pressure, the creative bottlenecks, the story hesitations” led to what one source describes with a very colorful metaphor. That said, they say those who crunched were paid overtime, and workers were offered time off in return. But they add that even with solid benefits and well-meaning team leaders, the work processes and demands in place are ‘unsustainable’.
Multiple sources say morale is low among remaining employees with the studio taking “all the wrong lessons” from the recent sequel’s success and so the problems will repeat.
They added that delayed feature “Elio,” which was pushed 15 months to a June 2025 release, is having the same issues leading to staff “working crazy hours to get Elio fixed”.
“Inside Out 2” will hit the Disney+ service next week. Head over to IGN for the full story which goes into a lot more detail.
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