Jun 6, 2023

Pixar's mass layoffs include "Lightyear" director and producer.

While The Walt Disney Company plans to cut 7,000 jobs as part of its cost-cutting efforts, Pixar has not been spared. [Reuters reported last Friday that the Emeryville, California studio has laid off 75 employees. The layoffs represent roughly 6% of the company's workforce and are the most significant job cuts at Pixar since 2013, when the studio laid off dozens of employees following production problems on "The Good Dinosaur."

The two most high-profile names leaving the company in the new layoffs are Angus MacLean (pictured above, left) and Garin Sussman (right), director and producer of The Light Years. According to a recent analysis, the film was one of Hollywood's biggest flops last year, losing $106 million.

McClain began working at Pixar 26 years ago as an animator and later moved into writing and directing. In addition to "Lightyear," he directed the short film "Burn-E" and co-directed the feature film "Finding Dory.

Sussman is one of Pixar's longest-serving employees, having joined the company in 1990, when Pixar was still producing primarily television commercials. After working in various technical positions up until Finding Nemo, he moved into a support role for the studio, including DVD and promo production; in addition to producing Lightyear, he was an associate producer on Ratataouille.

Sussman's claim to fame in Pixar lore is that he saved "Toy Story 2" when someone at the studio accidentally deleted the film's files. Sussman, the film's technical director, was working from home at the time and kept a backup copy of the production files on her home computer. She explains what happened in this video:

Reuters' initial report listed only the names of the three employees who were fired: McClain, Sussman, and Michael Agrunek, who had been vice president of worldwide advertising at Pixar since 2015. It is not yet known which areas of the studio or which other individuals were affected by the layoffs.