Inside Out 2 (2024) was not only Disney and Pixar’s biggest movie to date, it was animation’s biggest movie to date. The highest-grossing animated film of all time made $1.46 billion globally. But a recent report published by IGN reveals the drama behind the film’s incredible success.
The long-awaited sequel to the critically acclaimed Inside Out (2015) brought the world through the emotional experience 13-year-old Riley has as she begins to transition to high school. Because of a special invitation from the high school’s hockey coach, Riley and her friends go to hockey camp where she meets the high school’s star player. Inside her head, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust must compete with Riley’s new emotions: Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy, and Ennui all come with puberty, according to Pixar.
It may have been just what Pixar needed to bounce back from Lightyear’s (2022) decided failure. Lightyear was released to an industry gutted by workers’ strikes and the ever-present effects of Covid-19 theater shutdowns. Yet despite a very slow cinematic summer in 2022 and a quick transition from theatrical release to Disney+, according to anonymous former employees, higher-ups are blaming Lightyear’s failure on a peck between two people, who happened to both be women.
Don’t be mistaken, fourteen countries did refuse to show Lightyear over the scene. There were boycotts in the United States as well.
But Disney also pushed out a film past its nostalgic prime to a still-decimated industry. That year did not see the typical huge blockbusters that most summers see and many of the movies from the season, like Thor: Love and Thunder received negative reviews. Also premiering that summer? Top Gun: Maverick, Nope, and Elvis. The only movie in that list cracking a billion dollars in revenue was Top Gun: Maverick.
But when it came to the making of Inside Out 2, executives blamed Lightyear’s failure on the gay kiss and demanded last-minute editing to make Riley seem “less gay,” according to sources who spoke with IGN.
As LGBTQ+ rights are threatened in the United States, especially in Florida, one of Disney’s home states, employees were already feeling pushed aside by Disney’s reaction to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. They were outraged when they were told to cut the scene from Lightyear, which was only reinstated because of the employee reaction.
In addition to the issues surrounding queer identity, Inside Out 2 was also affected by the SAG-AFTRA strikes of the summer of 2023, though Disney still decided to go forward with the summer 2024 release. Former employees who spoke with IGN for their report cited 7-day workweeks with absurd hours, and an “all-hands-on-deck studio emergency.” With the base of the intensity to finish the movie, employees were still told to re-edit parts of Inside Out 2: Because Lightyear did badly, apparently because of the gay kiss, executives worried that Inside Out 2 would also be affected by Riley’s “gayness.”
Pete Doctor, Chief Creative Director of Pixar, has been quoted as saying that Pixar intends their movies to be for everyone, but is everyone included if they are not represented in media?
Though there are more details revealed by IGN’s report, just this information has reignited the discussion of how “woke” Disney should be.
In a highly critical review of Lightyear, Catholic Philly asked this question, citing previous examples of “wokeness” in other movies: Mei-Mei says “My panda, my choice,” potentially mirroring pro-choice sentiments in Turning Red, and America Chavez has two moms in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, for example.
Should Disney, a massive company known to house the happiest place on Earth, be “woke” — and should being “woke” be a criticism? According to the employee reports of Inside Out 2, as well as X’s input, Disney should be “woke,” because representation matters. As online debate continues about Inside Out 2, Lightyear, and Pixar’s future movies, Disney will have to decide where it stands on representation — and whether its movies really are for everyone.
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