The LA Times has confirmed that Bob Peterson has been dropped as director of Pixar’s 2014 feature The Good Dinosaur. The news of Peterson’s dismissal was first revealed by Blue Sky Disney on Monday, August 26th.
This would mark the third time in Pixar’s last four films that a director has been replaced mid-production: the other times were in 2010 when Brenda Chapman was replaced by Mark Andrews on Brave, and Brad Lewis was also taken off Cars 2 and replaced by Lasseter himself.
The unsettling trend at Pixar began in the mid-2000s when Jan Pinkava was booted off Rataouille in favor of Brad Bird. Another publicly announced project, Newt, which was to have been directed by veteran Pixar sound designer Gary Rydstrom, was canned entirely. Lasseter’s fondness for directorial musical chairs extends to his creative leadership role at Disney Feature Animation where he yanked Chris Sanders from the director’s chair on Bolt.