Pixar Lays Off Galyn Susman, Producer Who Saved ‘Toy Story 2’

Galyn Susman — the longtime Disney producer who’s credited with saving “Toy Story 2” — simply received the boot alongside a number of different Pixar workers … and followers are pissed.

The information got here down Saturday from Reuters, which reported Susman was certainly one of 75 Pixar staff who just lately gotten the axe in mass layoffs. She was certainly one of 3 key Pixar individuals to be let go … the others included Michael Agulnek — Pixar’s VP of worldwide publicity — and ‘Lightyear’ director Angus MacLane, who was concerned in different Pixar flicks too.

The firings are reportedly tied to the bomb that was final yr’s ‘Lightyear’ … a film based mostly on the “actual” Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Chris Evans. It had a finances of about $200 mil, and solely made $226 mil on the worldwide field workplace … to not point out middling critiques.

Whereas the movie did not do properly, many are saying that scapegoating — and finally canning — the execs/producers tied to its improvement is cold-blooded … particularly because it pertains to Galyn, who performed a vital in preserving what was left of ‘TS2’ on the time.

It is the stuff of legends — and this story’s been repeated a number of instances by Disney execs over time. There was some form of glitch in Disney’s computer systems that actually deleted upwards of 90% of the film again then because it was a few yr out from its imminent launch date.

The studio was scrambling to protect no matter was left, however from the seems of it … they have been going to have to begin from scratch — that’s, till Galyn got here to the rescue with a backup copy … which she luckily had in her possession because of her WFH/maternity go away.

In the long run, Disney remade the film anyway — creating a distinct model from what Galyn had saved — however her additional information undoubtedly saved them loads of time/work/cash.