Galyn Susman — the longtime Disney producer who’s credited with saving “Toy Story 2” — just got the boot alongside several other Pixar employees … and fans are pissed. The news came down Saturday from Reuters , which reported Susman was one of 75 Pixar workers who recently gotten the axe in mass layoffs. She was one of 3 key Pixar people to be let go … the others included Michael Agulnek — Pixar’s VP of worldwide publicity — and ‘Lightyear’ director Angus MacLane, news who was involved in other Pixar flicks too. The firings are reportedly tied to the bomb that was last year’s ‘Lightyear’ … a movie based on the “real” Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Chris Evans. It had a budget of about $200 mil, and only made $226 mil at the worldwide box office … not to mention middling reviews. While the film didn’t do well, many are saying that scapegoating — and ultimately canning — the execs/producers tied to its development is cold-blooded … especially as it pertains to Galyn, who played a very important in preserving what was left of ‘TS2’ at the time. It’s the stuff of legends — and this story’s been repeated several times by Disney execs over the years. There was some kind of glitch in Disney’s computers that literally deleted upwards of 90% of the movie back then as it was about a year out from its imminent release date. The studio was scrambling to preserve whatever was left, but from the looks of it … they were going to have to start from scratch — that is, until Galyn came to the rescue with a backup copy … which she fortunately had in her possession due to her WFH/maternity leave. In the end, Disney remade the movie anyway — creating a different version from what Galyn had saved — but her extra files undoubtedly saved them a lot of time/work/money. Now, she’s without a job … and Twitter users think that stinks on the part of the Mouse House. As they say — that’s showbiz, baby. Loyalty and IOUs have expiration dates.
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