Elio Report Reveals Exactly What Went Wrong With Pixar's Colossal Box Office Flop

It's unfortunate, but it doesn't look like Pixar's "Elio" will be another "Elemental" and surprise everyone with a shockingly great box office run. No, "Elio" is a flop, which sucks because the movie is actually rather fun. It's got great alien designs, an entertaining story, and a Carl Sagan quote designed that will make you quite emotional about the possibilities and power of science while also just reminding you of one of the most fascinating minds to walk this planet in the last century.

Sure, it's easy (and not unfair) to blame the marketing for the failure of "Elio" at the box office, combined with the competition from other, higher-profile films. Still, that doesn't change the fact that this simply wasn't Pixar's best. What's more, reports have surface that the movie suffered heavily behind-the-scenes, undergoing creative changes that resulted in a vastly different film hitting theaters than the one imagined by the project's creator and original director.

An article by The Hollywood Reporter highlights the series of changes made to the film and its story, ranging from the erasure of its queer elements to the movie's Latino representation being all but removed. This is also what led to voice actor America Ferrera and director Adrian Molina leaving the project, and reading the report, it's hard not to be furious at how Pixar ruined what could have been a very special film (by turning it into one that's just fine) because it was afraid of how the public would respond ... yet no one bothered to see the movie anyway.

According to the report, Elio (Yonas Kibreab) was initially queer-coded and meant to reflect the fact that Molina is an openly gay filmmaker himself. Though sources say Molina didn't envision the movie as a coming out story due to Elio being only 11 years old, there were nevertheless moments that quite clearly hinted at the character's sexuality.

For instance, the report mentions a sequence shown to Pixar employees two years ago in which Elio "collected trash on the beach and turned it into homemade apparel that included a pink tank top," as well as a scene that reveals Elio's bedroom is adorned with pictures "suggesting a male crush." As one former Pixar artist told THR, "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."

Unfortunately, growing feedback from Pixar leadership led to Elio becoming more typically masculine instead, with the report citing an early test screening in which viewers indicated they liked the film but didn't feel a strong desire to see it in a theater. This isn't an issue specific to any one movie, either; rather, it's a larger issue that Disney helped create (with Disney CEO Bob Iger having admitted that sending select Pixar movies straight to streaming was a terrible idea). Soon after the test screening, along with a separate screening for Pixar leadership, Molina exited the project, and the movie was reworked under its new co-directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi.

"I was deeply saddened and aggrieved by the changes that were made," former Pixar assistant editor Sarah Ligatich, who is a part of the company's internal LGBTQ group PixPRIDE, told THR. "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."

In addition to the queer erasure, there is something else missing from the final film — Elio Solís's Latino identity. Given Molina's background and the voice cast of "Elio," one would naturally expect the film's main characters being Latino would play a crucial role in the story. Instead, that's not at all the case with the movie, which feels like a hugely missed opportunity.

Indeed, when "Elio" was first announced back in 2022, Ferrera took the stage at Disney's D23 fan event to describe her role as Olga, Elio's mom. But in the final film, Zoe Saldaña plays Olga, now Elio's aunt. According to THR, sources at Pixar say Ferrera had already recorded dialogue for her role, but she exited the film after Molina's departure. Specifically, one former Pixar source said, "America was upset that there was no longer Latinx representation in the leadership." Which, yes, she should be. You don't just name your main character Elio Solís, recruit a Latino voice cast, and include a parental figure who works in the military for absolutely no reason.

These two big changes take away enough from "Elio" that the final film feels devoid of an identity. As it stands, audiences got a fun but unremarkable film, a bland Pixar summer flick that — as test screening audiences reportedly said — you don't really need to see in a theater.

Of course, the queer erasure in "Elio" isn't entirely new. Just last year, it came to light that Pixar's Disney+ series "Win or Lose" scrapped a transgender storyline at the behest of studio higher-ups. If Pixar is to save face, regain the trust of audiences, and enjoy success with something other than sequels, then it needs to start letting its creatives, well, create rather than robbing their art of the very things that make it meaningful.

"Elio" is now playing in theaters.