Disney’s Tuesday layoffs cut several hundred; Pixar takes the hardest hit

Disney laid off several hundred employees on Tuesday morning, with Pixar taking the hardest hit, according to a Disney spokesperson who spoke to TheWrap. The cuts are hitting corporate functions and specific Disney business units including ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television, and Disney Studios. Notifications went out company-wide on Tuesday morning, which matters because it suggests a pre-planned restructuring rather than a short-term reaction.

If you are tracking Pixar’s trajectory, this is the part that should jump out: Disney Studios layoffs are expected to be most severe at Emeryville, California, and on the DET side, National Geographic is expected to be hit hardest. The company framed the move as an ongoing resource management and reinvestment effort as the industry evolves. In other words, Disney is not calling this a “spend freeze.” It is calling it a reallocation, and the layoffs are the mechanism.

The timing matters for a second reason: TheWrap reports this is expected to be the largest round of Pixar layoffs since the summer of 2024, after “Inside Out 2” pulled in $1.69 billion at the box office. That contrast creates an uncomfortable question executives tend to avoid out loud. Even when box office performance is strong, staffing and development costs can still come under pressure, especially if the company believes the unit economics of future projects have shifted.

Disney’s current story is tethered to streaming economics, and 2024 is where the needle started moving. In 2024, layoffs at Pixar were blamed on the streaming contraction, as Disney+ eased up on its demand for new animated product. That background is crucial: when a studio’s internal customer (streaming) slows down, the studio can either shift production mix or reduce the machine that builds content. In this case, the content pipeline is being adjusted too. “Win or Lose,” Pixar’s inaugural long-form original animated series, would be burned off at the beginning of 2025. The second original series developed for Disney+ was canceled and reworked as a feature set to be released in 2028.

Today’s layoffs also appear tied to performance and perceived risk in Pixar’s recent film slate. TheWrap reports this round is at least partially being blamed on the perceived underperformance of “Hoppers,” a Pixar original film released earlier this year. “Hoppers” was directed by Daniel Chong, and it performed well with critics and audiences. But money and timing are what drive staffing decisions. It earned $389.5 million worldwide on a $150 million budget, which by typical Hollywood accounting standards leaves it slightly shy of break-even. That “slightly shy” category is exactly where studios often feel the most pain, because the movie is not a disaster, but it is also not a cushion.

“ Hoppers” came after “Elio,” another original that had a troubled production history. “Elio” had a final production budget of around $200 million and made just $154 million worldwide in 2025, making it Pixar’s lowest-grossing movie since the COVID-impacted “Onward.” On the surface, one film does not equal a strategy. But boards and finance teams tend to look at sequences: when multiple projects miss or land around break-even, the staffing model gets stress-tested. The logic TheWrap describes is straightforward: to stay competitive, Pixar needs to make movies, particularly original films, at more competitive prices.

This is where the human and leadership layer hits. Among those impacted is Rej Bourdages, an industry veteran who had stints at DreamWorks, Aardman, and Walt Disney Animation Studios, and who had been with Pixar for nearly fifteen years. His first credit was “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” a reminder that Pixar has long relied on deep craft talent, not just brand. Earlier this year, under new CEO Josh D’Amaro’s “One Disney” edict, Disney cut 1,000 employees, or “Cast Members” in Disney-speak. That included much of the Marvel Studios art department, all of the AV and home video publicity divisions, and Asad Ayaz’s chief lieutenant in digital marketing.

D’Amaro’s April memo set the tone for the current phase: Disney looked at ways to streamline operations “to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney.” He wrote that, given the fast-moving pace of industries, Disney would eliminate roles in some parts of the company and had begun notifying impacted employees, aiming to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs. That is the connective tissue between corporate restructuring and studio-specific layoffs. Technology and agility are the narrative. Headcount is the real math.

On the film calendar, Disney still has projects on the books. Next year will see a single Pixar animated feature released, “Gatto,” a painterly new movie by “Luca” director Enrico Casarosa. 2028 includes an original film and “Incredibles 3,” directed by Peter Sohn and written by Brad Bird. For executives at competing studios, streaming platforms, or media conglomerates, the second-order implication is hard to ignore: even when the franchise brand is strong, the staffing plan follows the perceived economics of future slates, including original films and their production price points.

If you are on a board, you are probably asking a sharper question than “Did this round happen?” You are asking: what assumptions about demand, cost, and break-even do internal teams use to staff up or down, and how quickly will those assumptions change the next time a film lands slightly shy of expectations? Disney’s Tuesday layoffs are a signal that those answers are being updated now, not after the next box office run.