The Walt Disney Company still has not formally announced a decision on the fate of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios chief creative officer John Lasseter, who is now in the 7th month of his “sabbatical.”
The only thing publicly known at this point is that Disney’s corporate leadership wants to re-install Lasseter, as reported recently by the Wall Street Journal.
The absence of corporate leadership at Disney at a time when it is most needed is mind-boggling to a large percentage of the animation industry. The same company that can make a split-second decision about Roseanne based on a single tweet has been completely impotent for months in the face of overwhelming evidence and believable claims that one of its key animation execs spent years engaging in the physical and verbal harassment of women and helped to create a sexually hostile work environment.