Disney lays off hundreds as Pixar sees major cuts during Toy Story 5’s billion-dollar run
Disney cut several hundred jobs Tuesday, with Pixar hit hardest on the studio side, even as the animation studio’s Toy Story 5 races past $950 million toward $1 billion worldwide. ESPN and National Geographic were hit too.
Disney laid off several hundred employees Tuesday morning, and the timing is rough.
The cuts landed across corporate functions, ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television, and Disney Studios, a Disney spokesperson told TheWrap. On the studio side, Pixar got hit the hardest. On the television side, National Geographic took the biggest blow.
Notifications went out company-wide Tuesday morning. It’s expected to be the largest round of Pixar layoffs since 2024.
Disney’s official line was the kind of thing companies say on days like this. The changes are part of a “continual evaluation of how we manage resources and reinvest across the company as our industry continues to evolve,” the spokesperson said.
Translation: we’re cutting jobs to move money around.
Pixar is getting cut while Toy Story 5 nears $1 billion
Here’s the part that’s hard to square.
Pixar just made Toy Story 5. The movie cleared $957 million worldwide this week and is climbing toward a billion dollars. It’s one of the biggest hits Disney has right now.
And Pixar is the studio taking the worst of these layoffs.
If that sounds backwards, it kind of is. But it’s not new for Pixar. The last big round of cuts came in the summer of 2024, right after Inside Out 2 made a staggering $1.69 billion. Pixar keeps getting trimmed in the middle of its biggest wins.
The reason is that Disney isn’t looking at the hit. It’s looking at everything around the hit.
Why Disney is cutting Pixar after two box office misses
The layoffs are being blamed, at least partly, on two movies that didn’t work.
Hoppers, a Pixar original that opened earlier this year, is the one an insider pointed to when talking to TheWrap. It wasn’t a disaster. Critics and audiences liked it, and it made $389.5 million on a $150 million budget. But by the way Hollywood does its math, that’s just short of breaking even, and “just short of breaking even” is not what Disney wants from Pixar.
Before that came Elio, which had a troubled production and a roughly $200 million budget. It made just $154 million in 2025, Pixar’s lowest-grossing movie since the pandemic hurt Onward.
Two original films that couldn’t turn a clear profit, back to back. So the push now is for Pixar to make movies, especially original ones, for less money. Fewer of the giant budgets that need a giant hit just to break even.
What’s next for Pixar after the layoffs
Pixar’s slate keeps moving, thinner than it used to be.
Next year brings a single Pixar feature, Gatto, a painterly-looking film from Luca director Enrico Casarosa. 2028 brings both an original film and Incredibles 3, directed by Peter Sohn and written by Brad Bird.
This also isn’t happening in a vacuum. Back in April, under CEO Josh D’Amaro‘s “One Disney” plan, the company cut around 1,000 jobs, including much of the Marvel Studios art department.
So Tuesday’s round is another cut on top of a year that’s already seen a lot of them. Toy Story 5 is about to give Disney a billion-dollar movie. It just won’t be giving those jobs back.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
TheWrap (July 21, 2026), Drew Taylor’s reporting on the layoffs across divisions, Pixar and Nat Geo being hardest hit, the Disney spokesperson statement, the Hoppers and Elio box office context, the Rej Bourdages detail, and the D’Amaro “One Disney” cuts
Box Office Mojo (July 2026), Toy Story 5‘s worldwide gross approaching $1 billion