Free Republic

Poor, poor woke Disney is having to make more major cuts. Pixar, the animation studio that brought you classics like the Toy Story movies and The Incredibles, and now makes movies no one wants to see like Elemental, Soul, and Turning Red, have decided they need to make some cutbacks. Currently, Pixar employs 1,300 workers but that number is likely to be slashed to under 1,000 with the newest business decision. No solid number has been determined, and none of the layoffs are happening right away. But by the end of this year, Pixar is going to look A LOT...

Disney's most recent Pixar animation, Elemental, has faced a significant setback at the box office, marking the studio's worst opening weekend in its 28-year history of feature films. The movie, which introduces Disney's first non-binary character, has been criticized by some fans for being "woke."

Chief diversity officer and senior vice president of Disney, Latondra Newton, has quit her role after more than six years following a devastating box office bombs from recent ‘woke’ films. In an internal memo from Disney chief human resources officer Sonia Coleman announcing Newton’s departure on Tuesday: Newton “decided to leave The Walt Disney Company to pursue other endeavors.” Newton plans to join the corporate board of another company while focusing on the creative company she owns, according to Deadline. Since 2017, Newton led Disney’s diversity and inclusion initiatives to produce entertainment “that reflects a global audience and sustains a...

Latondra Newton, who has served as Disney’s chief diversity officer since 2017, is leaving the company. An internal memo from Disney chief human resources officer Sonia Coleman announcing Newton’s departure was circulated to staff Tuesday. Coleman wrote that Newton “decided to leave The Walt Disney Company to pursue other endeavors.” We hear that she plans to join a corporate board and focus on a creative company she owns. Disney said Newton’s direct reports will now report to Julie Merges, SVP Talent Acquisition, who will run the DEI operations on an interim basis while the search for Newton’s replacement is underway....

The film aims to “tackle” racism and xenophobia and features the company’s first “nonbinary character.

Sources told Reuters of the job cuts on Saturday, which mark the first major job eliminations at the legendary studio in ten years. Lightyear director Angus MacLane had worked at Pixar as an animator for 26 years. He was part of the senior creative team on films like Toy Story 4 and Coco. Lightyear producer Galyn Susman had been at Pixar since the release of the original Toy Story film in 1995, according to Reuters’ sources. Additionally, Michael Agulnek, Pixar’s vice president of worldwide publicity since 2015, was also laid off, the report said. The job cuts took place on...

Pixar Chief Operating Officer Pete Doctor recently put the blame on moviegoers, or in this case, people who didn’t go see Lightyear for the film’s box office disaster. Lightyear only grossed $118.3 million at the domestic box office and $100.4 million internationally for a global gross of $218.7 million. The film’s reported production budget was $200 million meaning the film was a financial disaster for Pixar and The Walt Disney Company. Speaking with TheWrap, Doctor explained why he and Pixar believed the film performed terribly at the box office. He said, “We’ve done a lot of soul-searching about that because...

Disney’s animated movie ‘Lightyear’ flopped in its first weekend in theaters, with the new Toy Story spin-off film earning $51.7 million in North America. Not only did the movie open lower than expected, but it also failed to conquer ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’, which held on to the first-place spot with $58.7 million in its second weekend. Expectations were very high for ‘Lightyear’, an origin story about the movie that inspired the space ranger action figure in the ‘Toy Story’ movies, with some analysts pegging the movie for a $70 million North American debut. But it didn't even come close to...

“Lightyear” wasn’t able to get enough buzz at the box office this weekend. The latest film from Disney’s Pixar — which features the voice work of Chris Evans as Buzz Lightyear — opened to an estimated $51 million at the North American box office this weekend. That number came in way under industry expectations, which projected the film to make around $70 million. The movie took in $85.6 million worldwide, according to Disney (DIS). The film also failed to grab the top spot at the box office, opening at No. 2 behind the second weekend of Universal’s “Jurassic World: Dominion,”...

Pixar’s Lightyear (2022) hasn’t even debuted in theaters yet, but the Toy Story (1995) spinoff has already become the worst-rated Disney movie in history. Pixar Animation Studios and The Walt Disney Company have been swallowed by online hate, backlash, and controversies surrounding their newest film, Lightyear, the latest addition to the Toy Story franchise starring Chris Evans (Avengers: Endgame). With Pixar pouring their heart and soul to keep intact a scene with a same-sex couple sharing a kiss on screen, the internet exploded with social media attacks and civil wars regarding the matter. As a result of Disney reinstating the...

A professor of Ethics at Oslo Metropolitan University in Norway has called to legalize AI-generated child pornography, claiming that pedophilia should be seen as an innate sexuality that requires destigmatization. Ole Martin Moen, a gay man who identifies as “queer,” currently serves as a member of the advisory board on Norway’s Patient Organization for Gender-Incongruence (PKI), a social and political lobby group for trans rights. According to their official website, PKI’s purpose is to provide access to “gender-affirming treatment” to the public “regardless of factors like non-binary identity, sexual practice or having other diagnosis.” Moen has also served as academic...

On March 9, LGBTQ employees and allies at Pixar Animation Studios sent a joint statement to Walt Disney Company leadership claiming that Disney executives had actively censored “overtly gay affection” in its feature films. The stunning allegation — made as part of a larger protest over the company’s lack of public response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill — did not include which Pixar films had weathered the censorship, nor which specific creative decisions were cut or altered. But in at least one case, the statement appears to have made a significant difference. According to a source close to the...

For better and worse, “Turning Red” is like no Pixar film before it. The film, directed by Domee Shi, who made the lovely Oscar-winning short “Bao,” is the first Pixar movie directly solely by a woman. Its leadership team, including producers and art departments, is entirely female. And its protagonist, 13-year-old Meilin Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), is a Chinese-Canadian eighth-grader in the throws of puberty. For Pixar, a factory of childhood whimsy designed to make adults cry, “Turning Red” fills in more than a few blind spots. Not only is the movie deeply rooted in a female and Asian-North...

Pixar has released a casting notice for its first transgender character. Pixar Animation Studios, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, is famous for its innovative computer animation style. The company is based out of Emeryville, CA, and is known often by its logo, a playful bouncing lamp named Luxo, Jr. Pixar originally produced animated short films, but then began collaborating with the Walt Disney Company, which was interested in Pixar's computer animation programming. In the early 1990s, Pixar made a deal with Disney to produce three computer-animated films – the first being Toy Story in 1995. In 2006, the...

The lead character in the Pixar film “WALL-E” is both an acronym (Waste Allocation Load Lifter—Earth class) and a lonely robot with a personality. While Pixar has mastered the art of animation, it is the implicit message this film conveys which makes it much more than a mere cartoon. Some conservatives have written the film off as anti-capitalist propaganda. If the intent of capitalism is to cater to the basest instincts of the human heart, requiring us to indulge our every whim and desire, leading to a dependence on government, then I guess I, too, am an anti-capitalist. However, capitalism...

The newest short film in Pixar Animation Studios' SparkShorts series, Out, began streaming on Disney+ on Friday. The 9-minute movie centers on a gay man named Greg, who is excited to move in with his boyfriend, Manuel. There's just one problem: Greg hasn't come out to his parents yet. When they show up unexpectedly on his doorstep on moving day, Greg (with the help of his dog) rushes to hide who he really is at first... but then a magical twist of fate turns everything upside down. Out is the first Pixar movie to include a main character who is...

Pixar has unveiled its first gay main character in its new short film "Out" released on Friday. The computer animation studio, owned by Disney, premiered the film on the Disney+ streaming service through its SparkShorts series. It follows the story of a man named Greg who struggles with coming out to his parents before moving in with his boyfriend, Manuel.

Over the past two weeks, hundreds of movie theaters in the country had begun to reopen. No reason for the policy reversal was given, but insiders believe the government is worried about a potential second wave of coronavirus infections. China's film regulators has slammed the brakes on plans to gradually reopen the country's cinemas. Over 600 movie theaters across China were given the green light to reopen their doors over the past week, but Beijing's Film Bureau put out a notice late Friday ordering all theaters to go back into shutdown. No official explanation for the sudden reversal was provided....

The upcoming film “Onward,” which will be in theaters on March 6, will feature a self-identified lesbian heroine with a girlfriend, the first-ever animated LGBT character in the Disney-Pixar universe. The character, named Officer Specter, will be a Cyclops cop, voiced by openly gay screenwriter and actress Lena Waithe, Yahoo Entertainment reported. “It just kind of happened,” the film’s producer, Kori Rae, was quoted as saying. “The scene, when we wrote it, was kind of fitting and it opens up the world a little bit, and that’s what we wanted.” Director Dan Scanlon stated, “It’s a modern fantasy world and...

El Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is an ancient holiday that celebrates death and loved ones who've passed on. Google on Thursday is joining the holiday, observed each year on Nov. 2, with its own Doodle altar to the dead. The celebration traditionally features gatherings in which families pray and remember relatives and friends who have died and help them with their spiritual journey. Rather than mournful events, the holiday celebrates death as a part of the cycle of life, thereby dispelling fear of dying. The holiday also often serves as a source of...