After its newest movie “Elio” flopped on the field workplace on its opening weekend, Pixar is as soon as once more on the middle of controversy.
Nameless sources informed The Hollywood Reporter that Pixar CEO Pete Docter opted to have “Elio” be stripped of its homosexual coded themes, a lot as was the case for “Lightyear,” “Luca,” and most just lately, “Inside Out 2.” This partly led to each the exits of authentic director Adrian Molina and later, actress America Ferrera.
“Lots of people prefer to blame Disney, however the name is coming from inside the home,” a former Pixar artist informed THR. “A number of it’s obeying-in-advance habits, coming from the upper execs at Pixar. […] It was fairly clear by way of the manufacturing of the primary model of the movie that [studio leaders] have been consistently sanding down these moments within the movie that alluded to Elio’s sexuality of being queer.”
IndieWire has reached out to Pixar father or mother firm Disney for remark.
“Elio” premiered in theaters June 22 and flopped on the field workplace with a meager $20.8 million home opening, making historical past because the lowest ever in Pixar’s historical past. The movie had a rumored manufacturing price range north of $150 million.
Per THR sources, the lead character Elio was initially portrayed as a queer-coded character, as overtly homosexual filmmaker Molina (“Coco”) wished. Whereas it’s believed that Molina “didn’t intend the movie to be a popping out story, because the character is 11,” as THR reported, the movie included storylines about Elio having a love of trend and bed room posters of a attainable male crush.
In keeping with the report, Molina screened a reduce of the movie to Pixar executives in 2023. The movie additionally had an early take a look at screening in Arizona for an viewers that didn’t go effectively, with nobody elevating their palms to point they might pay to go to the movie in a theater. Pixar then known as in Molina to discuss altering the movie; the director exited the venture quickly after a dialogue with Docter that allegedly left Molina “harm.”
“Elio” was as an alternative reworked by storyboard artist Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi (“Turning Crimson”), who grew to become the movie’s co-directors after Molina left. Molina was provided to co-direct “Elio” with Sharafian, however after notes and modifications to the movie, he determined to go away solely. In 2025, Molina was introduced because the co-director for “Coco 2.”
Oscar nominee America Ferrera, who was set to play Elio’s mother, additionally parted methods with the movie after having already recorded dialogue; a supply to THR claimed Ferrera exited after Molina’s departure as she was “upset that there was now not Latinx illustration within the management.” Oscar winner Zoe Saldaña later took on the half, which grew to become Elio’s aunt within the new script, which was a large number inside itself.
“Abruptly, you take away this huge, key piece, which is all about identification, and ‘Elio’ simply turns into about completely nothing,” the previous Pixar artist added. “The ‘Elio ‘that’s in theaters proper now’s far worse than Adrian’s greatest model of the unique.”
One other former Pixar staffer that labored on the movie added, “[The character] Elio was simply so cute and a lot enjoyable and had a lot character, and now he feels rather more generic to me.”
The construction of Pixar’s meddling in sure storylines additionally extends to approaching animated “Hoppers.” THR reported that creatives on the characteristic have been informed by Pixar executives to chop a divorce plotline, “which is so wild,” and in addition de-emphasize the environmental activism.
In the meantime, “Elio” remains to be floundering in theaters. The IndieWire evaluate pointed to the disjointed manufacturing, studying, “If there have been ever a model of ‘Elio’ that had the spark of an outdated Pixar traditional, it obtained shuffled out of existence by a turbulent manufacturing course of that noticed authentic director Adrian Molina, who beforehand helmed the corporate’s Oscar-winner ‘Coco,’ changed by the duo of Domee Shi — whose hilarious ‘Turning Crimson’ stays the very best Pixar movie of the 2020s by a big margin — and Madeline Sharafian, recognized for guiding the quick ‘Burrow.’ Molina based mostly the movie’s authentic story idea closely on his personal life, and the directorial transition occurred proper round Pixar head Pete Docter admitting the studio can be pivoting away from ‘private tales’ pushed by administrators to movies with common mass attraction. Sure parts of the script straight based mostly on Molina’s life, corresponding to Elio’s mom working for the army, obtained rewritten solely.”