Disney-Pixar’s latest box office bomb “Elio” was supposed to be even worse, according to a report published Monday by The Hollywood Reporter — but a number of elements were cut after a screening of the film went nowhere with the audience.
The movie’s titular character was originally written as “queer-coded” — a nod to the film’s original openly-gay director Adrian Molina — with photos in Elio’s bedroom that suggested he was crushing on a boy, and a scene where he shows off the clothing he created from trash he found on the beach.
Vestiges of the latter scene remained in the finished product, as THR reported: “Hints at the trash fashion remain in the released film, with the boy wearing a cape decorated with discarded cutlery and soda can tabs, although without any explanation for the unusual attire.”
Some of the elements were whittled away throughout the production process, as leadership reportedly pressed for Elio to be more masculine.
But still, the writing was on the wall after a screening that took place in Arizona back in 2023. Not one person in the audience, despite several saying they enjoyed the film, said that they would pony up the cash to see it in a theater.
Things did not go better for Molina when a cut of the film was viewed by Pixar boss Pete Docter, and he left the project. New directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi took over, and although a number of those associated with the project said good things about Sharafian and Shi, they complained about the fate of the film.
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“I was deeply saddened and aggrieved by the changes that were made,” former Pixar assistant editor Sarah Ligatich, a member of the company’s internal LGBTQ group PixPRIDE, said. “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.”
Another Pixar artist who asked to remain anonymous told THR, “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 … Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and ‘Elio’ just becomes about totally nothing. The ‘Elio’ that is in theaters right now is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original.”
