Why Has Pixar’s “Elio” Crashed At The Box Office?

Way back at the D23 Expo in 2022, Disney revealed a brand new animated movie was in development called “Elio”, which told the story of an underdog with an active imagination who finds himself inadvertently beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organisation with representatives from galaxies far and wide. Mistakenly identified as Earth’s ambassador to the rest of the universe, and completely unprepared for that kind of pressure, Elio must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, survive a series of formidable trials, and somehow discover who he is truly meant to be.

Initially, the film was going to be released in cinemas on March 1st 2024, but Disney decided to delay the movie’s release by over 15 months, with it finally hitting cinemas last month.

With such a considerable delay, it was revealed that the film was going through some major changes, including a change in director, as Adrian Molina was replaced by Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi.   There was also a change in cast, with Zoe Saldaña replacing America Ferrera, in the role of Olga, who was also switched from Elio’s mum to his aunt. 

There has been a lot of speculation over why the film was delayed so much, and it’s clear from the initial teaser trailer released many years ago that the film went through some major changes, and THR has now revealed some details on the problems behind “Elio”.

Over two years ago, Disney held a special early test screening of “Elio” with an audience in Arizona for some initial feedback, which unfortunately wasn’t positive, as while the viewers said they enjoyed the movie, they were also asked how many of them would see it in a theater, and not a single hand was raised.  This set off a chain of events as Pixar looked to major some major changes to the film, to try to salvage the project.

At the time, Pixar was struggling to connect with audiences, as its last three movies were all released directly on Disney+. Additionally, “Onward” was rushed to Disney+ after its theatrical release, just a week or so before the pandemic began, causing cinemas around the world to close.  Pixar also had a huge box office flop with “Lightyear”, so it couldn’t afford to have another failure. 

There was also another major problem for Disney in general at that time, as Disney was deep into a culture war over its stance on Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” situation, resulting in many families becoming wary of Disney’s content.

Had the original version of “Elio” been released as planned, there is little doubt that this movie would have waded straight into the culture war, in a similar way to the failure of “Strange World”, as apparently, Elio was initially portrayed as a queer-coded character, which reflects the original director Adrian Molina’s identity as an openly gay filmmaker.

While the filmmaker didn’t intend on making a film, a coming out story, since Elio’s character is only 11, but over time, the character went through many changes to become more masculine as requested by management.  They also toned down his passion for environmentalism and fashion, plus they removed any hint that he had a crush on another boy.

The feedback from that initial test screening and the changes being made to the film, are the reason why Adrian Molina stepped away from the project.   The changes to “Elio” also weren’t popular with many members of staff at Pixar, especially with the LGBTQ+ representation being stripped away from the movie.  Former Pixar assistant editor Sarah Ligatich explained that 

“I was deeply saddened and aggrieved by the changes that were made.  The exodus of talent after that cut was really indicative of how unhappy a lot of people were that they had changed and destroyed this beautiful work.”

Another former member of staff at Pixar said:

“It was pretty clear through the production of the first version of the film that [studio leaders] were constantly sanding down these moments in the film that alluded to Elio’s sexuality of being queer.”

With so much of the original version of the film being removed, the core elements of the movie fell apart, as a former Pixar artist said:

“Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and Elio just becomes about totally nothing.  The Elio that is in theaters right now is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original.”

Another former Pixar staffer who worked on the film also added:

“[The character] Elio was just so cute and so much fun and had so much personality, and now he feels much more generic to me.”

Initially, the budget of “Elio” was estimated to be around $150 million, but all of the delays and changes have pushed the budget to over $200 million.  Currently, “Elio” is close to hitting just $100 million at the box office globally, making it one of the worst performing Pixar movies ever and some cinemas are already removing it from their screens, dampening any hope that this film has the legs to perform over the summer like “Elemental” was able to achieve. 

“Elio” is almost a textbook case of a film that probably shouldn’t have been released. Pixar tried to salvage the project, but fundamentally, it was flawed from the beginning.   The film never had mainstream appeal, and what would have made it different was stripped away to make it more palatable for a larger audience while also avoiding any negative backlash for Disney as a whole.  No doubt, had “Elio” been presented to Pixar today, it probably wouldn’t have got past the initial pitch period.    

The past five years for Pixar haven’t been great. The push to create more content for Disney+ hit the studio in the same way that Marvel and Star Wars suffered from a drop in quality.  It also devalued the theatrical release period for Pixar projects.  But perhaps more importantly, Pixar’s creative teams got too caught up in telling “their” stories, without truly understanding what the mainstream audience actually wants for family/kids animated movies. I’d almost say, they got stuck in their own bubbles and lost their connection with fans around the world.

Disney has also made similar changes to other shows and films, such as Pixar’s Win Or Lose” and “Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur”, as Disney looked to avoid adverse reactions from families around the world, especially with the global political climate undergoing a significant shift to the right. 

Many fans say that the version of “Elio” released was enjoyable, but it was clear that Disney didn’t fully commit to it, with a light promotional campaign, where they weren’t spending a huge amount of money to promote it, as they knew it wasn’t going to help.  It also didn’t help being sandwiched between the live-action versions of “Lilo & Stitch” and “How To Train Your Dragon”, which took the family audience away, especially at a time when families will only go to the cinema for big epic event movies.   I also personally think the name of the movie helped, as on its own, “Elio” doesn’t tell audiences what it’s about, it’s vague, and without seeing a trailer, you’d have no clue what it is about. 

Pixar is trying to recover from this with sequels to “Toy Story”, “Coco” and “Incredibles”, but “Elio” is a prime example of a film where the foundations were never going to be a financial success  It probably would have been better either being released as it was directly onto Disney+ or just written off as a tax write-off, rather than spending more time and money trying to fix something, that just wasn’t ever going to work.  Fundamentally, once they started stripping away what “Elio” was, it became more generic and less appealing to audiences.  

The film could still find an audience on Disney+ later this year, when it will be released on the streaming service after a few months in cinemas. But the damage is likely already done, as “Elio” will be considered to be a failure.    

What do you think of the situation with “Elio”?   Let me know on social media!