Pixar's Elio Might Be Dead on Arrival—and That's on Disney

While studios are flooding the summer with ads for How to Train Your Dragon, The Fantastic Four, and Superman, Disney seems to be tiptoeing past its own original animated release like it's hoping no one notices. And maybe that's the plan.

Elio had a bumpy road getting here. It was first announced in 2022 at D23, with Coco co-director Adrian Molina at the helm. The original teaser promised a quirky alien abduction adventure. Then came the reshuffle: Molina stepped aside to work on Coco 2, and the movie was handed off to Turning Red director Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian. The tone, the pacing, even the plot beats shifted. The latest trailer feels lighter, punchier—and very different from the film first pitched.

Pixar's Pete Docter tried to reassure fans, praising how the new team "expanded Elio as a character" and gave the story more emotional range. The final trailer does show a more relatable, slightly melancholy kid (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) who kind of wants to be abducted from his dead-end Earth life. There's definitely charm there. But even with creative course correction, Disney's silence is deafening.

And then there's the budget. Rumor has it Elio cost up to $300 million—a number that would make even Lightyear blush. Projections suggest it may not even match Lightyear's underwhelming box office. For Disney, that's a red flag the size of the Epcot dome. Quietly burying a movie you've already written off as a loss? Classic damage control.

The problem is, Elio isn't just a standalone movie—it's one of Pixar's few remaining original projects. Disney's release slate is dominated by sequels: Inside Out 2, Toy Story 5, Zootopia 2, Moana 2, and more. Even Elio's original director ditched it to jump on another franchise. That leaves only two confirmed original Pixar films on the horizon: Hoppers and Gatto. If Elio tanks, Disney may decide originality just isn't worth the risk anymore.