Disney has closed its Pixar Animation Studios branch in Vancouver, causing up to 100 employees to lose their jobs Tuesday, as the company plans to consolidate its business at Emeryville, California.
“As we look at the creative and business needs of our studio, we’ve made the decision to refocus our efforts and resources under one roof in Emeryville,” Disney said, in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg.
Although the California-based company has yet to disclose how many jobs have been lost, Amir Nasrabadi, the studio’s general manager, told The Vancouver Sun in 2009, shortly before Pixar set up shop here, that between 75 and 100 people would work at the Vancouver location, most of them from local ranks.
Pixar, the force behind box office hits Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc., opened the Gastown studio in the spring of 2010. Staff at the 20,000-square-foot facility worked on Pixar’s short computer-generated animations, which then went to theatres and ancillary markets like television, DVD compilations and the Internet.
Pixar was attracted to B.C. because of the tax incentives for filmmakers, however the province has reduced those incentives. It’s not the first mega production to close its doors in the wake of those cuts.
Last year, video game giant Rockstar closed its Vancouver branch in favour of moving operations to Toronto, just weeks after Radical Entertainment video games shut its doors, laying off about 90 employees.
