By Michaela Gordoni
The main character of Pixar’s latest movie, an 11-year-old named Elio, was originally going to be based on the original director for the film, Adrian Molina, an openly gay man.
Originally, the movie planned to represent Elio’s queer orientation through posters of male crushes in his room and a high interest in fashion. When Molina showed the story to leadership, they were not impressed. The film got a new director and heavy rewrites, RedState reported.
The Hollywood Reporter says many people left Pixar after Molina did.
“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,” one Pixar employee said.
America Ferrera was originally set to star as Olga, Elio’s mom. Purportedly, she left the role because Molina left. She also kept getting called back to re-record after already recording for the first version of the movie.
“America was upset that there was no longer Latinx representation in the leadership,” a former Pixar artist said.
The movie had the worst Pixar opening ever. Opening weekend saw $21 million domestic and $14 million overseas. It’s a massive loss to Disney — the movie cost $150 million to make.
“These would be solid numbers for another original animation film, but this is Pixar,” said David A. Gross of movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “By Pixar’s remarkable standard, this opening is weak.”
Part of Movieguide®’s review of the movie reads, “The movie shows a strong amount of moral, redemptive themes such as kindness, family bonds, love, and sacrifice, as well as allegorical death, baptism and resurrection. However, ELIO has multiple violent scenes that may be scary to a younger audience. Also, the movies solves the question ‘are we alone’ with aliens; whereas, Jesus Christ God and Creator solved it by his incarnation.”
The last time Pixar successfully launched a new original movie was COCO in 2017. ONWARD, ELEMENTAL and LIGHTYEAR have all flopped like ELIO.
“Coming out of the pandemic, the bar has been set higher for a number of genres, including family films,” said Gross. “It’s been hard to create something new with animation. Audiences want more of the same, or something very different.”
The movie also faced intense competition from other movies, like HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON and LILO & STITCH.
Shawn Robbins, Fandango’s director of movie analytics, said, “Competition from family audiences was difficult to overcome. It makes you wonder how ELIO would have performed in the spring, or even a week or two later.”
Read Next: Is Pixar Greenlighting an ELIO Sequel? The Movie’s Directors Say…
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
- Content: +4Share:
- Content: +2