Pixar Cutting Less Than 5% of Jobs After Film Is Delayed - Bloomberg

Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s Pixar studio is eliminating jobs after deciding to delay next year’s theatrical release “The Good Dinosaur.”

The cuts amount to less than 5 percent of Pixar’s 1,200 employees, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. That’s fewer than than 60 positions.

“We are constantly re-evaluating the creative and business needs of our studio,” Emeryville, California-based Pixar said in a statement, without providing specific numbers. “With the release date change of ‘The Good Dinosaur,’ we have realigned our production and support priorities, which includes a small reduction in our staffing.”

The decision to delay “The Good Dinosaur” for 18 months left the animation studio that produced “Toy Story” and “Cars” without an annual release for the first time since 2005. Disney announced the later date in September and said in October it would close a Vancouver facility.

“The Good Dinosaur,” about a 70-foot-tall teenage Apatosaurus that befriends a young boy, was pushed back to Nov. 25, 2015, Disney said at the time.

Disney, based in Burbank, California, rose 0.4 percent to $70.20 at 4 p.m. in New York, an all-time closing high. The stock has gained 41 percent this year.

Pixar’s most-recent release, “Monsters University,” has grossed $743.4 million worldwide since its June debut, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net