The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art – The construction project still under the construction of George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson – dismissed 15 full -time employees, or 14% of his staff, in efforts to open as planned in 2026, said Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.
Two people familiar with the operations of the museum who spoke to Times anonymously, described the announcement of the layoff last Thursday as “shocking and chaotic”. They were given until 2 p.m. to leave the premises and said their personal effects would be sent to them later by Courier. Seven part -time childcare posts were also cut.
Among those whose posts have been eliminated, Bernardo Rondeau, who had been hired as a curator of film programs and had previously been founding founding director of film programs at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
He published news from the Cannes Film Festival, writing on LinkedIn: “To date, my role as curator, film programs at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art was redundant, with immediate effect. He noted that he will be in the Fring Film Fest until May 22.
“While the Lucas Museum is progressing as an institution of planning at the opening implementation, we evaluated our current and determined organizational structure that changes were necessary,” shared the Lucas museum in a statement to Thewrap. “Following these decisions last week, the museum eliminated 15 full -time roles and 7 part -time roles on call (mainly from the museum learning and commitment and services teams) and provided license packages to all. This is an extremely difficult decision to reorganize the roles and bring the staff, but the restructure will allow the museum to continue to continue to do more effectively to bring the museum for life for the public. Roles in strategic operational fields in anticipation of the opening of 2026. ”
The declaration continued: “Education remains a central pillar of the Lucas museum. One of the main reasons why the Los Angeles exhibition park was chosen as a location for the museum was its proximity to other museums, USC and more than 400 schools within a radius of five miles. The plans of the advanced educational program are always in development, and we are impatient to share closer to the opening. »»
The museum inaugurated in 2018 the museum in 2018. The supply chain problems during the pandemic moved the initially planned opening from 2023 to 2025. In December, the opening date was again moved to 2026.
The layoffs come after the departure in April of the director and CEO of the Sandra Jackson-Dumont museum, who led the project for five years. According to Times, Lucas “did not seem to be engaged” in the education and public programming that Jackson-Dumont had planned.
When its release was announced in February, the museum published a statement saying that its role would be divided into two positions, with Lucas responsible for Content Direction and Jim Gianopulos, former president and chief executive officer of 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures, as an interim CEO, in addition to a continuous role as “special advisor to the founders”.
The museum, which is part of an 11 acres campus. Was designed by the architect Ma Yansonng de Mad Architects. The main 300,000 square feet building will include galleries, two advanced theaters, as well as learning and commitment, catering, retail and events.
