Blue Sky Studios was set to release Disney’s first movie with lead queer characters. The movie, Nimona, is based off of the webcomic by Noelle Stevenson and became a graphic novel under the publishing company, HarperCollins according to Buzzfeed. According to Looper, the movie was set to release on January 14th of next year. According to The Hollywood Report’s Borys Kit ,on Twitter, “Blue Sky was in the middle of production of Nimona… about 75% complete.” However, Disney released a statement explaining, “Given the current economic realities, after much consideration and evaluation, we have made the difficult decision to close filmmaking operations at Blue Sky Studios.” 

According to Buzzfeed, “employees were told on February 9 that Disney was shutting them down as of April.” Many employees were disheartened because the movie was going to feature “queer leads and even a same sex kiss”. Especially since Disney has only had “queer minor characters before” like “LeFou” in Beauty and the Beast according to Buzzfeed. Disney did try to incorporate more queer content after facing backlash for not doing so sooner with the short, Out. However, this was only a small clip and Nimona would have been a breakthrough for Disney becoming the “first feature-length film with queer lead characters” according to Buzzfeed. 

According to Buzzfeed, many employees expressed their frustrations stating, “That is heartbreaking because we are not only losing our jobs, we’re losing our family, our workplace, we’re losing the closure of being able to send Nimona out into the world, where it could change kids’ lives,” one of the employees said. “I just want this movie to be seen by the world, because it needs to be seen by the world.” Additionally another employee expressed concerns that Disney wasn’t even fully supportive of the idea from the start. “I don’t think that Disney would be enticed to make it, personally.” Even mentioning “the final product could have ‘easily’ won an Oscar.” “It would have been huge and it’s just devastating that it’s not out there,” they said.