WALT Disney Co, home to Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, plans to cut 20 percent of the 800 jobs at its animation unit following the purchase of Pixar this year, the company has said.
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% r" I( y& ? W3 |Walt Disney Animation will eliminate about 160 jobs, an executive at the Burbank, California-based company said. Pixar, with about 800 employees at its Emeryville, California, campus, won't see any cuts, the person said, according to Bloomberg News. & W! S. O7 Z3 D* G' B. x" e+ `
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The reliance on Pixar, creator of "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo," reflects the diminishing fortunes of the studio founded by Walt Disney in 1923. Disney dominated feature animation from 1937's "Snow White" to "The Lion King" 57 years later. Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger decided to buy Pixar after realizing Disney, the second-largest US media company, hadn't created a memorable character in a decade. 6 _9 {4 b# l5 L2 |8 ?4 g0 U) W; `
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"Pixar has repeatedly shown it is a better developer of animation than Disney," Soleil Securities Group Inc analyst Laura Martin said in an interview. "Regardless of Iger's personal affinity for the people in Burbank, he is keeping the people who maximize shareholder value."
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0 w9 c9 q8 J0 s0 i" uThere are 350 union animation jobs at the Burbank, California-based studio, according to Animation Guild Business Representative Steve Hulett. ) O2 r! o, {. v: J# _& U5 |9 P( B: U
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Disney will tell employees starting from December 11 whether they will keep their jobs, Hulett said in an interview, citing conversations with animators. Employees losing their jobs will receive 60 days' notice, Disney spokeswoman Heidi Trotta said. V, ~* ~1 {6 F$ T
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"The management team at Walt Disney Animation has determined that each film will dictate its own appropriate production schedule," Trotta said in an interview. "The result of this necessitated a reduction in staff." % o7 G3 I: q1 p* G
- T4 V5 P. z: h' Y9 KThe job cuts will coincide with Walt Disney Feature Animation's release of "Meet the Robinsons" in March and a shift to an 18-month production cycle from one movie every 12 months, Hulett said. Disney handed production of the third "Toy Story" movie to Pixar, purchased for US$8.06 billion in May. * }& I4 ?1 R9 E1 \
( a: W& ]* I% p2 Z" K& S"They are really focused on margins there," said Michael Nathanson of Sanford C. Bernstein, the top-ranked entertainment analyst by Institutional Investor magazine. He said he was expecting job cuts at the animation unit. ' j$ ]$ K; [4 g* |; L
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Disney in July announced it would save US$100 million a year by cutting 650 film division jobs at its live-action studio. The cuts represent about 20 percent of the film-studio workforce. % j8 b/ a" N! {6 m0 ^: Z: T
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Disney Animation has several projects in development, including "Rapunzel," "The Frog Princess," "Joe Jump" and "American Dog," according to Hulett. |
发表于 2006-12-4 10:31:23