Pixar is losing Hollywood’s animation war

Pixar has hit a Wall-E. 

The Disney-owned animation studio responsible for the “Toy Story” and “Cars” franchises, among other huge hits, just can’t make a winner anymore.

Thirteen years ago Pixar was riding high, scoring a Best Picture Oscar nomination for “Toy Story 3.” And its last success, 2019’s “Toy Story 4,” grossed over $1 billion worldwide.

Four years later, it’s an animation afterthought that can’t compete with Universal’s DreamWorks Animation or Sony Pictures Animation anymore.

Acknowledging its decline, the studio laid off 75 employees this week to offset recent losses.

Pixar’s once-unquestioned position in the family-movie game of thrones has been rapidly usurped by bloodthirsty competitors. 

Last weekend, Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” raked in a huge $120 million, while Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” just topped $1.3 billion worldwide, making it the third highest-grossing animated film ever after Disney’s “Frozen II” and the remake of “The Lion King,” both from 2019.

Audiences are demonstrably interested in animated films — just not in Pixar.

Yes, the studio is about to re-enter the fray with “Elemental,” a 3D movie in which the main characters are cutesy fire and water elements, which screens in the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday and opens wide June 16. 

But critics were unimpressed by its premiere last month at the Cannes Film Festival. “Elemental” currently holds a 60% score on RottenTomatoes, making it the second-worst-received movie ever from the studio. Only “Cars 2” fared worse at 40%.

Box-office projections, according to The Wrap, have the film earning a paltry $40 million in its first weekend — one of the worst Pixar openings in history.

“Elemental” looks like it’ll be yet another in a string of embarrassing Pixar flops. 

The studio’s “Onward” premiered in March 2020, shortly before pandemic lockdowns began, and floundered as a result. “Luca” and “Soul” went straight to Disney+ and made little cultural impact. “Lightyear,” which hit theaters in 2021, was a dud that misjudged ticket-buyers’ appetite for a Buzz Lightyear origin story.

Asked why Pixar is stumbling, a Hollywood source said, “Two words — John Lasseter.”

Lasseter, once the chief creative officer of Disney Animation and Pixar, was a founding employee of Pixar, from the studio’s first film, 1995’s “Toy Story,” to 2018’s “Ralph Breaks The Internet,” and was the creative force behind their biggest hits.

He directed “A Bug’s Life,” the Oscar-nominated “Toy Story 3” and two “Cars” films, and was made CCO when Disney acquired Pixar in 2006.

Lasseter was forced out of Disney in 2017 after accusations of sexual misconduct were made against him by employees, including “grabbing, kissing, making comments about physical attributes,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. The exec apologized, and took on the role of Head of Animation for Skydance Animation in 2019.

Pete Docter, the director of “Inside Out,” replaced Lasseter at Pixar, and the studio hasn’t regained its footing since the change-up.

“Docter is a sweet guy — not a leader,” the source said. “People like him, but nobody reveres him like they did Lasseter.”

Lasseter, who was also a champion of “Spirited Away” genius Hayao Miyazaki, was in the artistic mold of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, whom he worked alongside, and who prized boldness and animation during his successful tenure.

“Eisner was a brilliant leader who was an inspired risk-taker and never a blamer,” the source said. “You felt safe with him. And animation was his way of becoming Walt 2.0.” 

Current top dog Bob Iger, on the other hand, is better known for acquiring and maintaining existing brands, such as Star Wars and Marvel, not for championing original animation.

Pixar’s recent movies have lacked the spark of those from the 1990s and aughts. The flicks made during Docter’s reign have leaned cerebral and the characters, blobby, like in “Soul.”

And millennials, who grew up with and stuck by Woody, Dory and Mike Wazowski, don’t seem all that interested in the newer properties.

Once Hollywood’s hottest new toy, Pixar looks doomed to be like its “The Good Dinosaur” — unsuccessful and extinct.