Even before Disney Pixar’s Elio was released, the movie was already getting bashed for not having enough marketing and looking pretty generic; and while some fans were hoping it could pull off an Elemental and get good word of mouth, this latest reveal about the film may have just cemented the failure of Elio at the box office.
According to a recent reveal from The Hollywood Reporter, some Pixar staffers had revealed that Elio underwent a major rework—particularly removing several queer elements associated with the character to make him more masculine and general audience friendly. “I was deeply saddened and aggrieved by the changes that were made… The exodus of talent after that cut was really indicative of how unhappy a lot of people were that they had changed and destroyed this beautiful work,” says former Pixar asst. editor Sarah Ligatich.
As it turns out, much like the original director Adrian Molina, Elio was supposed to be queer-coded in the film, with implications that he was very much into fashion and that he even had a crush on a boy. While the movie was said to have been enjoyed by test audiences, they were then asked if any would watch it in theaters and nobody had raised their hand—resulting in the heads of Pixar to rework the movie and make Elio more ‘masculine’.
An anonymous Pixar staffer confirmed: “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.”
As you would expect, when this news broke out, several people online had decides to speak out about Pixar. This wasn’t the only time they had done queer erasure. A few months back, they were also getting flak for removing a transgender storyline in their Disney+ series Win or Lose.
If anything, Elio is still getting some nice word-of-mouth from anyone whose seen it, but after the release of the THR report, fans are now thinking this could be the final nail in Elio’s box office coffin.
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, Elio is now showing in theaters.
