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With the original team that produced hits like Toy Story coming back into the fold with Disney's acquisition of Pixar this week, the employees in the cutely nicknamed "Pixaren't" division, charged with putting together knockoff sequels of the Pixar movies had the relationship between the two companies not been salvaged, will probably be looking for new gigs. Reports the LAT:

"We feel very strongly that if the sequels are going to be made, we want the people who were involved in the original films involved in the sequels," Jobs said.

Iger sounded the same note.

"It was really important to me that the people who made the films originally, who had the vision, who knew the characters and the essence of these films get a shot at making any films that were derivative," the Disney chief said.

"While Disney might have been able to make them, Pixar making them is just so much different," Iger added. "Not to take away from the talent of other people who might have been picked to make them."

Although Disney is planning to shutter the sequels unit, which is officially named Circle 7 after the street where it is situated, that does not necessarily mean all of its employees will be let go. Some are expected to be absorbed into Disney's core animation division.

On Wednesday, Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook said, "All of the sequels to Pixar movies will be made by Pixar. We are clearly going to look at all of the talent that has been assembled and figure out where we go from here."

Like any fill-in shredder stepping into Guns N' Roses while Slash took some rehab time, we have to think that the Pixaren't gang knew they had a ticking clock on their gig when they received their assignment. It looks like some of the sequelizers will keep their jobs and be reassimilated into an animation battalion of the Mouse Borg (unless the brass is just trying to tidy up a round of layoffs from the media), but many probably won't be so lucky. Those deemed expendable will be offered either a severance check or immediate reassignment as tumbleweed wranglers at Disney's long-abandoned California Adventure theme park.