Just last week, Disney’s Elio amassed about $21 million at the box office, the lowest opening weekend for a Pixar film. While many attributed the film’s failure to its lack of appeal to a mainstream audience, The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that the film has experienced nothing but turmoil for nearly two years. It claims that the problems stemmed from a single test screening.
Originally directed by Adrian Molina (Coco), the first version of the film featured Elio as “a queer-coded character.” The outlet reports that the film was never meant to be a coming-out story, but rather a reflection of Molina’s identity as an openly gay filmmaker. This depiction of the character gradually faded after a screening in 2023, where viewers were asked afterwards if they would pay to see the movie in the theaters.
THR reports that not a single person who attended that screening raised their hand. Alleged feedback from Pixar head Pete Docter soon after left Molina feeling discouraged. He then departed the project, with other Pixar alums Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi swooping in to revise the film.
Molina’s film was near complete at the time of his departure. Original star America Ferrera would drop out of the project soon after, citing scheduling conflicts with all of the additional lines she needed to record. However, one source told THR that she was really disheartened by the lack of Latinx leadership in the wake of Molina’s absence. Neither Molina or Ferrera have yet to comment on the THR’s article.
Molina, Sharafian and Shi are all credited as directors in the final version of Elio. And Molina is still employed at Pixar, currently working on the sequel to Coco. While Elio still turned out to be a wonderful watch, we can’t help but mourn what could have been. With the film underperforming at the box office, it feels as if all the of the major changes were made in vain. Not too mention, the intented isolation of a potential LGBTQ+ character goes against the film’s primary theme of loneliness.
This isn’t the first time Disney or Pixar have taken steps to remove LGBTQ+ representation from its projects. A same-sex kiss in Lightyear notably caused some controversy in some countries after the film was released. Earlier this year, Pixar’s first original TV series, Win or Lose, faced massive backlash after it intentionally edited out a storyline about a character who was clearly transgender.
With so many members of the LGBTQ+ community making up the Disney community, it’s sad to see how willing the studio is to deny them representation. Still, there’s hope they will go back to the inclusivity that made it a powerhouse brand in the first place.
SOURCE: THR
