Inside Pixar’s Box Office Flop, America Ferrara, Director Change

Those who worked at Pixar while its latest film release, Elio, was in production were delighted by footage they saw roughly two years ago. Among the moments cited as favorites by those at the animation studio at the time included a sequence in which the titular boy collected trash on the beach and turned it into homemade apparel that included a pink tank top; the movie’s team would refer to Elio showing this off to a hermit crab as his “trash-ion show.”

But if you bought a ticket to Elio and don’t remember seeing this, it’s not just that you chose the wrong time to refill your soda. According to multiple insiders who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, Elio was initially portrayed as a queer-coded character, reflecting original director Adrian Molina’s identity as an openly gay filmmaker. Other sources say that Molina did not intend the film to be a coming out story, as the character is 11. But either way, this characterization gradually faded away throughout the production process as Elio became more masculine following feedback from leadership. Gone were not only such direct examples of his passion for environmentalism and fashion, but also a scene in Elio’s bedroom with pictures suggesting a male crush. 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.

Elio’s turbulent ride began well before its calamitous nosedive at the box office durin the June 20-22 corridor. Indeed, the summer of 2023 became a fateful one for the animated film about a lonely boy beamed into outer space by an intergalactic organization after being misidentified as the leader of Earth. The writing was first on the wall for the troubled production when the film from Molina, known as the co-director of Pixar’s Oscar-winning 2017 hit Coco, conducted an early test screening in Arizona. Although viewers expressed how much they enjoyed the movie, they were also asked how many of them would see it in a theater, and not a single hand was raised, according to a source with knowledge of the event. This sounded alarm bells for studio brass.

It was around this same time that Molina screened his latest cut of the film to Pixar leadership. There are differing accounts of the exact feedback that the director received from Pixar boss Pete Docter when the lights went up, with rumors circulating in some of the studio’s circles that Molina was hurt by the conversation. The part that is clear is that Molina exited the project soon after, and much of Elio was reworked under new co-directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi.

After a yearlong delay, the film arrived in theaters June 22 and bombed with just $20.8 million domestically, the lowest opening frame at the box office in Pixar’s history.

“I was deeply saddened and aggrieved by the changes that were made,” says former Pixar assistant editor Sarah Ligatich, who provided feedback during Elio production as a member of the company’s internal LGBTQ group PixPRIDE. Although she praises Sharafian and Shi as filmmakers, Ligatich notes that a number of creatives working on the film stepped down after the directors shared their first cut of the movie. “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 source disputes that people stepped down in response to Molina’s departure.

The changes to Elio were clear to one former Pixar artist who worked on the film and asked 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.”

Not long after that final 2023 screening of Molina’s cut for Pixar brass, the company announced internally that Molina would take a break from the project, leading to a period of inactivity for those working on the film. Sources tell THR that Molina was informed shortly thereafter that Sharafian, who wrote and directed Pixar’s 2020 short Burrow and was a storyboard artist on the 2022 feature Turning Red and Elio, would be elevated to director. Molina was given the opportunity to direct Elio with Sharafian, but after the numerous notes and changes to his original vision, he decided to leave the project. A short time later, Pixar announced internally that Shi, the director and co-writer of Turning Red, would join Sharafian to direct Elio. During the summer of 2024, Docter told The Wrap that Molina left Elio to move to an unnamed “priority project”; a fuller picture came in March of 2025 when Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the studio’s development on Coco 2, which sees Molina returning as co-director. (Disney acquired Pixar in 2006.)

“Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and Elio just becomes about totally nothing,” says the former Pixar artist. “The Elio that is in theaters right now is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original.” Adds another former Pixar staffer who worked on the film: “[The character] Elio was just so cute and so much fun and had so much personality, and now he feels much more generic to me.”

Still, the film that was released in theaters earned solid reviews, sporting an 81 percent critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, along with an A CinemaScore (A+ for viewers under 25). In her review for THR, critic Angie Han calls the film a “perfectly nice kiddie sci-fi adventure.”

Some of Elio’s changes were more noticeable than others. When the film was first announced at Disney’s D23 fan event in 2022, America Ferrera took the stage to describe her role as Olga, Elio’s mom. At the following D23 in 2024, the Emmy winner was announced as having left the film amid scheduling conflicts, with Zoe Saldaña joining the cast as Olga, now Elio’s aunt. Sources tell THR that Ferrara had already recorded dialogue for the film but that her decision to exit was attributed to Molina’s departure, not to mention that frequently being called back to rerecord lines due to script changes likely took its toll. Says the former Pixar artist, “America was upset that there was no longer Latinx representation in the leadership.” (Ferrera did not to respond to a request for comment, nor did Molina.)

Pixar finished 2024 on quite the high note, with Inside Out 2 topping $1.6 billion at the global box office to become the year’s biggest film. Additionally, the studio had announced that Andrew Stanton, the Oscar-winning director of such hits as Finding Nemo and WALL-E, would helm Toy Story 5, the latest installment for Pixar’s highest-grossing franchise as the studio continues to prioritize sequels of its flagship characters. But the looming cloud over the coming months was the fate of Elio, given limited public awareness of the original movie and the fact that its release had been delayed significantly.

Media reports have cited its production budget as $150 million, but former Pixar employees tell THR that the film cost far more than that. The artist who worked on the movie was not privy to the specific figure but estimates it was well north of $200 million, given that Molina’s version was nearly complete, which she says makes the “catastrophic box office” feel worse. In citing a similar theme to other former Pixar staffers, the artist emphasizes that Sharafian and Shi did all they could to give the leadership the best film possible, amid the circumstances.

The Elio production resulted in fraught feelings for those with ties to Pixar who have come to question whether the company intends to prioritize diversity. Docter sparked debate when he noted in a 2024 interview that the studio should make the “most relatable films” possible, which was perceived as advocating for a shift away from underrepresented characters and voices. These remarks came in the wake of the 2022 criticism of then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Additionally, Toy Story spinoff Lightyear whiffed at the box office in 2023 after right-wing pundits ignited a furor over its same-gender kiss. And the Pixar series Win or Lose launched on Disney+ earlier this year after creating controversy over its transgender storyline getting scrapped.

But did the decisions to downplay Elio’s queer themes actually come from the parent company? Insiders aren’t so sure. “A lot of people like to blame Disney, but the call is coming from inside the house,” says the artist. “A lot of it is obeying-in-advance behavior, coming from the higher execs at Pixar.” The person cites such examples as next year’s animated feature Hoppers having to tone down themes of environmentalism and also reveals that a movie in early development got a startling note: “That director was told, ‘You can’t have divorce in this movie,’ which is so wild.” A different source with knowledge of the project downplays the notion of this representing major meddling and sees such suggestions as typical of any early development process, noting there was no mandate prohibiting divorce.

Although the studio will hope for Elio to exhibit the same theatrical legs as Elemental, the 2023 title that overcame a slow start at the box office to turn a profit, most eyes now turn to next year, when Hoppers’ theatrical release in March will give an assessment of the original film pipeline, while astronomical expectations build for the summer launch of Toy Story 5. One former Pixar staffer who worked on Elio appreciates that the studio has planned “48-hour hackathons” where employees have been given free rein to pursue any creative ideas. But whether the sessions lead to projects or concepts that will ever see the light of day is another matter.

In the meantime, the pain of the Elio process still stings for the creatives who saw the movie’s trajectory become something of a cautionary tale. “I’d love to ask Pete and the other Disney executives whether or not they thought the rewrite was worth it,” says the artist. “Would they have lost this much money if they simply let Adrian tell his story?”