Production company Skydance Media announced today that it is hiring John Lasseter, the former chief creative officer of Pixar Animation and Walt Disney Animation Studios, to head Skydance’s nascent animation division. Lasseter, who worked his way up from an animator job at Pixar to a powerful position overseeing Disney’s animation strategy and storytelling, was first placed on a leave of absence from Disney in November 2017, then was pushed out of the company in June 2018, following a wave of complaints about sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and groping female employees at Disney’s companies.
Skydance CEO David Ellison issued a memo to staff about the hiring, saying, “Let me be clear: we have not entered into this decision...