Buzz (Chris Evans) prepares for a risky test flight in Lightyear (2022), Pixar Animation Studios
According to a new report, Disney leadership have taken to internally attributing the box office failure of Pixar’s Lightyear film on the fact that it featured a “queer kiss”.
Buzz (Chris Evans) looks on as Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) and her wife, Kiko, attend their son’s college graduation in Lightyear, Pixar Animation Studios (2022)
Released in June 2022 and developed on a reported budget of $200 million, the Toy Story spin-off/prequel/in-universe film ultimately ended its theatrical run, per box office analytics outlet The-Numbers, with a total world wide haul of just $218.77 million, in doing so solidifying its status as a bona fide bomb.

As for the reasons for its failure, while it would be easy and politically-convenient to blame the entirety of it on noted backlash to the film’s featuring of a same-sex kiss, as shared between Buzz’s partner Aishia and her wife Kiko, such other issues as its boring premise and generally uninspired execution also served to torpedo the film’s box office prospects.
Alisha (Uzo Aduba) and Kiko (N/A) share a quick kiss in celebration of their 40th anniversary in Lightyear, Pixar Animation Studios (2022)
However, in both a reversal of their previous ‘critics of the kiss are inconsequential’ mindset and an apparent attempt to dodge any responsibility for their own cynical creative decisions, it appears Disney has taken to not only admitting that the discourse around the scene was particularly significant, but also blaming the entirety of Lightyear‘s failure on its inclusion.

This alleged insight into the House of Mouse’s current mindset was first brought to light courtesy of numerous supposedly-former Pixar employees who spoke to IGN‘s Alex Steadman following the studio’s recent layoffs.
Buzz (Chris Evans) looks to Sox (Peter Sohn) for a pep-talk in Lightyear (2022), Pixar Animation Studios

Raising Lightyear as a prime example of the studio’s current creative and financial mismanagement, one anonymous employee noted that not only was Pixar leadership taking care to censor any “overtly gay affection” in their materials, but “It is, as far as I know, still a thing, where leadership, they’ll bring up Lightyear specifically and say, ‘Oh, Lightyear was a financial failure because it had a queer kiss in it.”

“That’s not the reason the movie failed,” they added.

To this end, another anonymous former Pixar employee told Steadman, “A lot of us accepted the fact that we may never see a major gay character in a Pixar movie.”
Buzz (Chris Evans) finds himself in the far-flung future in Lightyear (2022), Pixar Animation Studios
Ultimately, putting a stamp on their colleagues’ complaints and revelations regarding the less-than-stellar working conditions of the once-top-tier animation studio to a close, a further former-Pixar staffer asserted, “I think the biggest feeling that I heard around the studio before the layoffs and now even post-layoffs, talking to people who are still there, is everybody feels like the executives are really just acting in a fear-based way.”

“Everything is to preserve their own power in their own jobs,” they noted. “So I think morale is really low because people no longer trust that they’re being led with their best interests at heart.”
Buzz (Chris Evans) pushes his ship to its time-traveling limits in Lightyear (2022), Pixar Animation Studios