Jonas Rivera, the Oscar-winning producer and Pixar suit behind Inside Out and Toy Story 4, has been promoted to executive vp film production at the famed animation house.
In the new position, Rivera will oversee all film and streaming production at the studio, guiding projects toward their creative and operational milestones.
With the promotion, producers, associate producers and directors of production will continue to report to Rivera. Directors will continue to report to chief creative officer Pete Docter on creative matters but will now report to Rivera on operational issues.
He is also a key member of the Pixar executive team.
The promotion is reflective both of Pixar’s ramping up of production on movies and TV shows for theatrical and streaming and the important contributions Rivera has made over his long tenure at the studio.
Rivera is a homegrown Pixar talent. He joined the animation studio in 1994 to work on Toy Story as the studio’s first and only production intern. He advanced roles on almost every subsequent Pixar feature film: art department coordinator for A Bug’s Life, marketing and creative resources coordinator on Toy Story 2, art department manager on Monsters Inc. and production manager on Cars. He became a full-fledged producer with the studio’s 2009 film Up, which was nominated for a best animated feature Oscar.
In 2015, Rivera reteamed up with Up’s director, Docter, for Inside Out, which won an Academy Award for best animated feature and was nominated for best original screenplay. He most recently produced Toy Story 4, which also won the Oscar for best animated feature in 2020.
Currently, he is overseeing the completion of Pixar’s latest original feature, Elemental, working with director Peter Sohn and producer Denise Ream ahead of a planned June 16 release.
He is also mid-production on Win or Lose, a series for Disney+, and shepherding Pixar’s spring and summer 2024 feature film releases, Elio and Inside Out 2.
