The latest Disney/Pixar animated film, ‘Elio’, has a dubious distinction. It has the worst opening weekend ever for a Pixar film, making only $21 million domestically and $14 million overseas. This is against a budget reportedly ranging from $150 million to $300 million. Yikes! Would you believe us if we told you things could have been even worse at the box office? Before some major changes, the 11-year-old title character was going to be gay (‘queer-coded’) and, for fun, put on fashion shows with clothing made out of trash he found on the beach. Oh, and he had a boy-crush. No really!
Here’s more background. (READ)
Pixar massively changed ‘ELIO’ after the original cut was test screened & not a single person raised their hand when asked if they’d pay to see the film in a movie theater
Elio was also initially a queer-coded character until leadership told them to make him more masculine… pic.twitter.com/3VReaNSSQW
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) June 30, 2025
Kind of a blockbuster here: Pixar made a movie about a gay 11-year-old; at a test screening not a single viewer raised their hand to recommend it; gay Latino director fired; America Ferrera quit b/c of this; movie reworked and flopped.
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) July 1, 2025
After Strange World and Lightyear, two movies with gay characters, flopped, Disney didn’t want to go in this direction again but apparently the animators are pushing hard for “queer themes.”
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) July 1, 2025
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) July 1, 2025
You’re probably asking how the original pitch for the movie was approved. No sane person would ever think that’s something that would appeal to mainstream families.
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Posters say the answer is clear – the studio ‘talent’ isn’t making movies for mass audiences, they’re making movies for themselves and about themselves.
Read the article. It’s emblematic of the broader problem in Hollywood: too many militant queers and gays forcing their lifestyle into art.
— Verden Fell (@fell_verden) July 1, 2025
Lol, in keeping with woke ideology the article writer is obligated to say the reason the movie flopped is because Pixar edited out the gay story line. If only it had been more gay it would have been a huge hit.
— Paul D’Acri (@manraygun1) July 1, 2025
More gay wouldn’t have saved the film.
Many posters have a simple solution that will prevent this from happening in the future.
So even though they changed the main character, people saw right through it.
Maybe they should start from the beginning without adding any of these woke elements
— Bill (@BillC663892012) June 30, 2025
What a concept
— Joseph Kastner (@JosephKastner4) July 1, 2025
Should’ve fired the writers and try writing the movie off as a tax break the second they found out about the test screening.
— Keegan (@Keeganseminoles) July 1, 2025
— Scribe Light (@Scribe_Light) July 1, 2025
They could have canned the film while it was in its original form or skipped the theatrical release on the reworked version and sent it straight to Disney+. Now, they have to deal with the huge financial loss of putting it in theaters and the embarrassment of it being a colossal flop.
