In an interview with Vulture, Jim Morris, the president of Pixar Animation Studios, made an odd comment about Pixar’s leading male directors in a discussion about the studio’s future post John Lasseter’s exit as chief creative officer.
According to Morris, some of Pixar’s top filmmakers, including Brad Bird (The Incredibles and Ratatouille), Pete Docter (Monsters Inc. and Inside Out), Lee Unkrich (Coco and Toy Story 3), and Andrew Stanton (Wall-E and Finding Nemo) will be too old to make relevant animated films ten years from now. Morris' full comment can be seen below:
“Those guys are all middle-aged or older now and they’re not going to be the filmmakers ten years from now. They’re not going to necessarily be the ones that have their finger on the zeitgeist. And we knew that. Animated films come from people of their time, if that makes any sense. Just as John was, and Andrew, Pete, and Lee were when they made their first films.”
While critical of the filmmakers who created some of Pixar’s most successful projects, Morris, who is currently 64 years old, is ironically older than some of the directors he names; Docter, Unkrich, and Stanton, are all in their early 50s.