'Elio’ deserves better than ‘bomb’ status
Disney/Pixar’s “Elio” recently netted the lowest-grossing opening weekend of any Pixar movie in its history.
Disney, one of the biggest companies in the world, will be fine. However, the poor performance no doubt steers Pixar further away from its golden era of original content.
“Elio,” a movie long plagued by behind-the-scenes production issues, won’t be measured by any of the studio’s masterful efforts from the 2000s. Still, it’s somewhat of a miracle that it works as well as it does. A mix of science-fiction comedy and family drama, “Elio” has enough of that “Pixar touch” to go alongside its reliably spectacular visuals. It begs for big-screen consumption, especially at a time when blockbusters in Hollywood continue to rely on unconvincing-CGI-masked-as-live-action-photorealism. At least with a fully animated movie, and one made as lovingly as “Elio,” the presentation is consistent and immersive.
Pixar’s biggest hits of the past decade have been sequels, including last year’s $1.7 billion earner, “Inside Out 2.” Sure, Pixar’s sequels, including the various “Toy Story” installments, tend to be much better than the average franchise programmer, but Pixar’s legacy (the reason why anyone bothers to write articles like this one) endures because of original content.
As much as it might be easy to blame moviegoers for preferring to watch inferior copies of “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Lilo & Stitch,” Disney and Pixar created most of the pain they've endured in recent years.
Disney likes to blame the pandemic for releasing original Pixar titles “Soul,” “Luca” and “Turning Red” exclusively on Disney+. Sure, COVID-19 played a role, but so did Disney’s obsession with expanding the subscriber base of its then-just-launched streaming service. Executives of both Disney and Pixar subsequently acknowledged how they essentially “trained” their core audience to skip theaters and wait for an eventual release on streaming.
That can’t be the only culprit, as studios like Universal and Warner Bros. still tend to ship their most successful titles to streaming homes on Peacock and HBO Max at a faster clip than Disney. A ton of people went to see “Wicked” and “A Minecraft Movie,” then they watched the movie again on streaming.
And OK, both “Wicked” and “Minecraft” came with built-in, established audiences. Fine. Original movies like “Elio,” then, shouldn’t be tasked with competing in a busy summer blockbuster corridor in which it opens a week after a franchise-friendly title like “How to Train Your Dragon” and a mere three weeks after your parent company’s own franchise juggernaut (Why would Disney even want “Elio” to steal potential eyeballs away from “Lilo & Stitch,” a movie that will likely make a billion dollars?).
“Elio,” as an original title aimed at families, shouldn’t be competing for family audiences who already appear interested in other titles. It costs a bunch of money to take a family to the theater these days, and parents are more likely to choose the most familiar title to their kids.
Pixar’s own internal meddling also seems to be costing the studio millions. “Elio” has three credited directors, with original director Adrian Molina (“Coco”) leaving the project after, reportedly, the studio expressed concern about perfectly innocent content that ran the risk of being misconstrued by loud pundits who wouldn’t watch the movie anyway (search The Hollywood Reporter’s recent stories on “Elio” for full context). From the sounds of it, the “Elio” production spent millions extra on altering certain content in an effort to garner “broader” audience appeal. Right or wrong, that investment obviously didn’t result in interest from a broader audience.
Even knowing about the behind-the-scenes turmoil, it’s still impressive just how vivid and character-focused “Elio” manages to be even after some of its more distinct ideas were excised. Credit to co-directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi for their work in crafting a universally relatable story. Shi, the writer and director of “Turning Red,” in particular appears to be a rising star at Pixar that the studio should be careful not to lose. Molina, meanwhile, appears to remain in the Pixar mix, working on “Coco 2.”
Ultimately, it’s impossible to completely discount Pixar because, while the highs aren’t as high as they were two decades ago, the studio continues to make better films than its direct competition. At this point, at least two original stories remain in production (2026’s “Hoppers” and 2027’s “Gatto”), but without a different strategy, Disney and Pixar will likely further abandon unique stories in favor of more “Toy Story.”
In the meantime, go see “Elio” in a theater while you still can.
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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.
This image released by Disney/Pixar shows Elio, voiced by Yonas Kibreab, in a scene from "Elio."