Earlier today came word that part of Disney’s planned layoffs included a lot of employees at their Pixar animation studio. Reuters brought word that 75 people lost their jobs at the studio, including several executives that had been involved in last summer’s box office bomb Lightyear. This included not only the film’s director Angus MacLane but also producer Galyn Susman. For Disney fans, the studio laying off Galyn Susman is one that has Disney fans stunned, because without her then Pixar as we know it may not exist at all. Let’s dig into the full story below.
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Pixar was quick to get started on Toy Story 2, but the film almost got lost to time. The highly-anticipated follow-up to their Oscar-nominated movie (which changed the form of feature-length animated films forever) was accidentally deleted from the Pixar servers while animation was ongoing, and with less than a year to go before the planned release date. A rogue command on their system caused specific files and later most of the entire film to be deleted in a purge. After banging their heads together to figure out a way to save it, Toy Story 2 technical director Galyn Susman remembered she had a backup copy of the film at her home while working on it during maternity leave.
This story became such a big moment in Hollywood history and Pixar’s own story that they produced a short about it and included it on the DVD release of the sequel. You can watch it yourself below.
Susman’s role at Pixar began even before Toy Story 2, working as a Lighting Supervisor for the original Toy Story movie. She would go on to do internal work at Pixar before transitioning into a producer role. She worked as an associate producer on Ratatouille, and later a producer on Toy Story 4, the many Toy Story animated shorts at the time, and last year’s Toy Story-spinoff, Lightyear.
Even before they fired many of the creatives behind the film, Disney and Pixar made it clear they were pivoting away from the failure of Lightyear when they announced Toy Story 5 unceremoniously during an investor phone call. Disney’s Bob Iger was notorious for greenlighting sequels and remakes during his original tenure, so that multiple hit sequels were announced as soon as he was back in the top seat shouldn’t have been a surprise.
