Finger-Pointing at Disney as Disastrous Flop of Pixar’s ‘Elio’ Is Blamed on ‘Erasure of Queer Themes’ by Nervous Executives

The historic failure of “Elio,” which had the worst opening in the history of Disney’s storied animation studio, Pixar, is being blamed by some of the studio’s far-left staff on the decision by executives to order changes to the film’s “queer-coded” main character — an 11-year-old boy — and make him “more masculine,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. As a result of the changes, THR reports, the film’s openly gay director, Adrian Molina, departed the project, as did actress America Ferrara, who had been cast as the voice of a principal character. The finished film, anonymous insiders said to THR, became “about totally nothing,” The film’s mid-production makeover offers an example of the about-face the parent company of Pixar, the Walt Disney Company, has made in the last year after abandoning a trend of adding gay characters and gay intimacy — in ways its critics said were at times gratuitous — to its movies. After getting bruised at the box office in 2023, with industry observers saying the increasing levels of gay content were meeting with consumer resistance, Disney’s chief executive, Bob Iger, said the company needed to get back to the business of entertaining. “Elio,” a science-fiction film, follows the story of a young boy as he navigates a new space city after being mistakenly identified as Earth’s ambassador to the universe. The version of Elio that made its debut on the big screen on July 20, however, was apparently quite different from the character that was originally written. Per THR, Elio was initially portrayed “as a queer-coded character” as envisioned by Mr. Molina. In the original cut, Elio was depicted as a fashion-loving environmentalist who, in one scene, created a “trash-ion show” out of discarded items on a beach, including a pink tank top. Another clip, which was also axed, showed pictures in Elio’s bedroom that suggested a male crush. However, Pixar’s execs, still reeling from the backlash over the same-sex kiss depicted in its 2023 film “Lightyear,” reportedly pushed the team to make Elio’s character “more masculine.” According to a former Pixar Animation Studios artist who chose to remain anonymous, “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.” The Pixar artist remarked, “Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and Elio just becomes about totally nothing.” The staffer further lamented that the “Elio” that is in theaters now “is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original.” Another anonymous staffer offered a similar take, telling the Hollywood Reporter that “Elio was just so cute and so much fun and had so much personality, and now he feels much more generic to me.” Things went south when Pixar held an early test screening in the summer of 2023 and “not a single hand was raised” when the viewers were asked if they would see “Elio” in a theater. When the film was later shown to Pixar leadership, a conversation allegedly took place that “hurt” the director, Mr. Molina, the Hollywood Reporter notes. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Molina exited the project, and “much of Elio was reworked” under new co-directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi. Around the same time, Emmy-award winning actress America Ferrera, who was cast as the voice of Elio’s mother — and had reportedly already recorded dialogue for the film — departed as well, citing scheduling conflicts. Sources told THR that her exit was connected to Mr. Molina’s departure, and the anonymous Pixar artist claimed that “America was upset that there was no longer Latinx representation in the leadership.” She was replaced by Zoe Saldaña. Even with the major mid-production changes, however, the film struggled to draw paying viewers. Its domestic opening — which grossed $21 million — marked the lowest box office opening in Pixar’s history. That did little to offset the film’s production costs, which reportedly came out to $150 million, though insiders told THR that they suspect the figure sits north of $200 million. The report comes as Disney is still facing backlash over its “woke” approach to its real-life revival of the Brothers Grimm classic, “Snow White.” The controversy-stricken film flopped at the box office, grossing only $69 million domestically and $145 million internationally on a production budget of $270 million — and millions of dollars more to market. In the last year, Disney has made a sharp pivot, reversing its aggressive embrace of “diversity, equity and inclusion” in its programming that intensified after the death of George Floyd. Mr. Iger has said that politics is “bad for business.” Disney has largely stopped gratuitously adding gay characters and moments of gay intimacy to its films and TV shows, limiting their inclusion to when they would be an important part of a storyline.

Finger-Pointing at Disney as Disastrous Flop of Pixar’s ‘Elio’ Is Blamed on ‘Erasure of Queer Themes’ by Nervous Executives

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