Inside Out 2 Was the Hit Pixar Needed, but the Laid-Off Employees Who Crunched on It Are Still Hurting
Inside Out 2 Was the Hit Pixar Needed, but the Laid-Off Employees Who Crunched on It Are Still Hurting
Inside Out 2 is the highest-grossed animated film ever. But behind the scenes, Pixar workers grappled with crunch, layoffs, and an avoidance of LGBTQ+ themes. Our report of the tumultuous making of the sequel to one of the most beloved Pixar films ever.
IGN interviews ex-employees of pixar who worked on "Inside Out 2". The article discusses crunch, layoffs, the company culture of pixar, and how the failure of "Lightyear" led to executive notes that "Inside Out 2" be "less gay"
Lightyear just wasn't a very good movie. It's easier for execs to blame including a gay character than to admit the failure of multiple people at high levels in making a bad movie. My son was crazy for Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story and we wanted to like Lightyear, but the story just made no sense.
Can we pay the people who make these billion dollar movies?
“I think for a month or two, the animators were working seven days a week,” one source says. “Ridiculous amounts of production workers, just people being tossed into jobs they'd never really done before… It was horrendous.”
“I would venture that at least 95% of the people that got laid off are financially f*cked right now,” one person says.
“The internal culture of Pixar right now is really rough,” one former employee says. “There is just an incredible amount of people who are like, ‘I can't do this anymore.’ “