Animators Allegedly Directed by Disney to Make ‘Inside Out 2’ “Less Gay” After Lightyear Controversy & Revenue Loss

After a year without a billion-dollar film, Disney is back on track with two movies crossing the billion-dollar mark this year. Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine have both been major hits with audiences.

Pixar’s latest success, Inside Out 2, has earned $652.6 million in the U.S. and Canada, and $1.030 billion internationally, bringing its global total to $1.682 billion.

IGN has revealed intriguing insider reports about Inside Out 2. Animators were reportedly instructed to make Riley, the film’s protagonist, “less gay” to avoid the backlash that Lightyear faced over a same-sex kiss scene.

Lightyear was banned in several Muslim-majority countries due to a same-sex kiss between characters Alisha Hawthorne and her partner Kiko. Although China requested the removal of this scene, Disney refused. The scene was initially cut but later reinstated following Disney’s response to the Florida Parental Rights in Education bill and internal company debates.

Despite these controversies, Lightyear grossed $118.3 million in the U.S. and Canada, and $108.1 million internationally, for a global total of $226.4 million. It was the fourth highest-grossing animated film of 2022 in the U.S. and the fifth worldwide. However, Deadline Hollywood reported that the film resulted in a $106 million loss for the studio after factoring in all expenses and revenues.

Insiders report that the movie caused numerous problems for the development of Inside Out 2:

“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.

The development of Inside Out 2 was reportedly impacted by a reluctance to incorporate LGBTQ themes. Sources suggest that there were repeated directives to make Riley, the main character, appear “less gay,” resulting in numerous edits, particularly after the WGA strike ended in September 2023.

There were deliberate efforts to make the relationship between Riley and Val, a new character in the sequel, seem as platonic as possible, including modifications to lighting and tone to downplay any romantic chemistry.

One source described these efforts as excessive, aimed at avoiding any perception of Riley and Val being in a non-heteronormative relationship.

Mind you, Riley is not canonically gay. In the film, what you saw, nothing about Riley says that she is gay, but it is kind of inferred based on certain contexts. And so that is something that they tried to play down at multiple points.

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