You might recall a few months ago that we reported on a rumor about the director of Elio leaving the project.
Well, according to The Wrap, the rumor is true. Director Adrian Molina has indeed left the project, but not on bad terms. Speaking with Chief Creative Officer Pete Doctor, the outlet reveals that he’s been moved to work on another secret priority project.
As the rumor originally stated, the film will now be directed by Domee Shi, director of 2022’s Turning Red. Interestingly enough she’ll be joined by Madeline Sharafian who made the 2020 short film Burrow for Pixar.
It’ll be one of the first times that a Pixar film has two directors. As Doctor points out, in the past, a film will usually have a director and a co-director. That’s not all.
Molina wasn’t the only one to leave the project. America Ferrera, who has already been featured in a trailer, and was supposed to play Elio’s mom has also exited the project. However, the outlet reports that it was only due to scheduling conflicts. That is why Zoe Saldana has stepped in. But, as we previously reported, she will not be replacing Ferrera’s character. Rather, she’ll be playing a new character altogether: Elio’s aunt.
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The film follows an eleven-year-old boy named Elio Solis who accidentally becomes the intergalactic Ambassador of planet Earth after being beamed up to the Communiverse by aliens for making contact. Elio must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms and survive a series of formidable trials.
The official synopsis is as follows, “For centuries, people have called out to the universe looking for answers—in Disney and Pixar’s all-new movie Elio, the universe calls back! The original feature film introduces Elio, an underdog with an active imagination who finds himself inadvertently beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization 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.”
Pixar‘s original sci-fi was previously delayed by more than a year, moving from March 1, 2024, to June 13, 2025.
SOURCE: The Wrap
