Film Academy Lays Off 2 Percent Of Workforce Amid Restructuring

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is now impacted by the ongoing period of contraction across Hollywood.

On Oct. 30, the organization behind the Oscars and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures laid off 2 percent of its workforce — 16 of roughly 800 employees, per The Hollywood Reporter. The move was made as part of a larger restructuring that has been underway for the past 18 months and was described in May as “an organization-wide effort to unite teams.”

All employees impacted this week worked within the Academy’s collecting and preservations departments. Mike Pogorzelski, director of the Academy Film Archive, and Anne Coco, associate director of the Graphic Arts Collection of the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library, being the most prominent among them. Both are highly regarded experts who had been with the organization for years.

An Academy spokesperson declined to discuss personal matters. But, there was said to be a sense within the organization that certain jobs spread between its archive and library had become duplicative. Furthermore, the Academy is seeking to tighten its belt ahead of the 100th Oscars in 2028, after which its Oscars broadcasting deal with ABC, its primary source of revenue, will expire, and a new, likely smaller due to declining ratings for awards telecasts, broadcasting deal will be pursued.

Even still, the Academy’s collecting and preservation efforts are continuing full speed ahead, as demonstrated by a press release issued announcing new acquisitions. Among them: the Studio Ghibli animation collection, featuring drawings by Hayao Miyazaki; Quentin Tarantino’s original handwritten script draft for Pulp Fiction; objects from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022); costumes worn by Jamie Lee Curtis, Kurt Russell, Meryl Streep and Joanne Woodward; and personal collections of Curtis Hanson, Barbara Kopple, Ve Neill, Oliver Stone and Paul Verhoeven.

The Hollywood Reporter obtained an email from Academy CEO Bill Kramer to Academy employees detailing the “efforts to bring all of our collecting and preservation departments together…”