Fired X-Men '97 showrunner Beau DeMayo has chosen to go to war with Marvel Studios and Disney over his dismissal, going so far as to recently share an outline of an earlier, arguably superior, version of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Now, in the wake of a damaging exposé from IGN (via ComicBookMovie.com) about poor working conditions in Pixar - specifically relating to the production of Inside Out 2 - DeMayo has claimed that he was told to make Professor X and Magneto's dynamic "less gay" while working on the series.
While those two have never been romantically linked on the page, X-Men '97 wouldn't have been the first time that a deeper meaning to their relationship has been teased as Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class did the same.
Regardless, it clearly didn't work for Disney and Marvel Studios executives if DeMayo is to be believed.
Back to Pixar, and this new report alleges an "unprecedented" crunch for animators working on the Inside Out sequel. One source told the site, "I think for a month or two, the animators were working seven days a week. Ridiculous amounts of production workers, just people being tossed into jobs they'd never really done before. It was horrendous."
While a senior executive has disputed the claim, the studio has remained silent on allegations that they decided to make last-minute changes to Inside Out 2 in a bid to make lead character Riley "less gay" (which is what DeMayo is referring to above).
According to the site, "Sources describe rumors that there was special care put into making the relationship between Riley and Val, a supporting character introduced in Inside Out 2, seem as platonic as possible, even requiring edits to the lighting and tone of certain scenes to remove any trace of 'romantic chemistry.'"
It seems this approach was influenced by Lightyear's disappointing box office performance in 2022. While there were plenty of reasons for the Toy Story spin-off's struggles, "multiple sources say that Disney leadership internally put a large part of the blame for Lightyear's financial failure on a same-sex kiss in the film, which was briefly removed then reinstated after an internal staff uproar."
One source notes, "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."
Disney appears to be concerned about potentially alienating half its U.S. audience (and certain countries overseas) by embracing LGBTQ+ themes in its movies. Moving forward, it now sounds like Pixar will focus on telling "universal" stories that don't court controversy in any way.
The full report is an essential read and you can check it out by clicking here.