Pete Docter, chief creative officer at Pixar and director of “Monsters Inc.,” “Up” and “Inside Out,” recently told the Wall Street Journal why the studio decided to completely overhaul 2025’s “Elio” and cut out the film’s LGBTQ storyline.
Docter told the WSJ that Pixar didn’t want to expose its young audience to things they weren’t ready to see or hadn’t discussed with their parents. He said, “We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy.”
“Elio” follows a lonely kid who looks to the stars for friends after being rejected as an outsider by other kids his age. Despite the clever premise, WSJ reports that the film tested poorly in early screenings, with most audiences saying they wouldn’t pay to see it in theaters. In response, Docter ordered a complete overhaul of the film, even though a significant chunk of the animation was complete. The overhaul led to the exit of the film’s original director, Adrian Molina.
Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi then stepped in and made significant changes to “Elio.” This included, according to the WSJ, removing moments that indicated the title character was gay. Previous versions of the film reportedly showed Elio with a pink bike and had a scene where he imagines a life together with his male crush. The changes sparked backlash within the Pixar staff, drama that was compounded by Disney’s decision to cut a transgender character from Pixar’s animated series “Win or Lose.”
“Elio” launched in June 2025, earning $150 million worldwide at the end of its run. That would be a stellar number if it weren’t for the fact that the film cost $150 million to produce, not factoring in global marketing costs.
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