Disney shook up its animation leadership on Thursday as part of an ongoing effort to improve movie quality.
Jennifer Lee, who has led Disney’s flagship animation operation since 2018, delivering the smash hit “Encanto” and the wipeout “Strange World,” will step down effective immediately, Disney said. She will remain at Disney as a writer-director and focus on shaping the company’s all-important “Frozen” franchise.
Disney named Jared Bush, 50, to succeed Lee as chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Bush’s directing and writing credits include “Encanto,” “Zootopia” and “Moana.”
In a statement, Lee, 52, thanked Disney for “supporting my decision to return to filmmaking full time.” She will direct and write the previously announced “Frozen 3,” expected in 2027, and co-write “Frozen 4,” which is unscheduled. Alan Bergman, Disney’s top movie executive, said in a statement that Lee had “made an indelible mark on both Disney Animation and the industry.”
“There is truly no one better suited to oversee the continuation of the beloved story of ‘Frozen’,” Bergman added.
Lee’s rise in animation was meteoric. She got her start in the field in 2012, when she co-wrote the screenplay for “Wreck-It Ralph,” about an arcade game villain who dreams of becoming a hero. The next year, she directed, with Chris Buck, the musical sensation “Frozen” and won an Oscar.
In 2018, Lee became the first woman to lead Disney’s famed animation studio, which developed the art form into mass entertainment in the 1930s and ’40s. She replaced John Lasseter, who resigned after complaints were made about his workplace behavior. (Lasseter ran both Walt Disney Animation Studios and the separate Pixar Animation Studios; Pete Docter succeeded him at Pixar and will remain in that post.)
The “Frozen” franchise is crucial to Disney. The first movie dominated the culture for months, collecting $1.3 billion worldwide and selling billions of dollars in related merchandise. A “Frozen” Broadway musical and “Frozen” attractions at Disney theme parks have followed. “Frozen 2,” directed by Lee and Buck, sold $1.4 billion in tickets in 2019.
“Frozen 2” received weaker reviews, however, and marked the beginning of an uneven period for Walt Disney Animation Studios. “Raya and the Last Dragon” (2021) was celebrated by critics, but ticket sales were severely impacted by the pandemic. The musical “Encanto,” also released in 2021, became a runaway hit on Disney+.
Lee’s division then faltered badly with “Strange World,” about a family in space in search of a miracle plant, and “Wish,” about a girl who wishes on a troublemaking star. Both films flopped at the box office, and “Wish,” directed by Buck and co-written by Lee, received poor reviews.
Bergman and Robert A. Iger, Disney’s CEO, have been under extreme pressure to deliver improved movie results. Disney’s seven movie factories — Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, 20th Century, Searchlight Pictures, Disney Animation and Walt Disney Pictures — began to break down in 2021. They had been pushed too hard to make content for Disney’s streaming service. The pandemic added difficulties, resulting in a string of failures, including “Jungle Cruise,” “Lightyear,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “The Marvels.”
Over the past year, Disney has regrouped, easing off the gas pedal at Marvel and installing new leadership at its live-action Walt Disney Pictures division. The greater focus on quality seems to be working. Disney had four hits in a row over the summer with “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “Inside Out 2,” “Deadpool & Wolverine” and “Alien: Romulus.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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