Disney-Pixar’s Elio was supposed to be even more woke than what ended up in theaters—and that’s saying something for a film that’s already being called one of the biggest box office flops in Pixar history. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio quietly stripped out several scenes that made the movie’s political messaging a little too on-the-nose… even for Disney.
Let’s be blunt: the movie bombed. A $200 million animated film that barely scraped past $20 million opening weekend. And instead of asking why audiences stayed away in droves, some insiders at Pixar are now upset because the original version wasn’t woke enough. Yes, really.
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
The film’s original director, Adrian Molina—an openly gay filmmaker—had packed the first draft full of “queer-coded” content. Elio, the young boy in the film, was supposed to be crushing on another boy, with his bedroom walls covered in suggestive photos and a homemade “fashion show” outfit stitched together from garbage he found on the beach. Literal trash couture. Because that’s what kids really relate to, right?
Some of those elements, like the soda-tab cape, still made it to the final cut—though without explanation. Because when your plot already involves aliens, mistaken identity, and intergalactic diplomacy, why not toss in some arts-and-crafts symbolism and hope nobody notices?
“Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and Elio just becomes about totally nothing.”
If your movie is nothing without its identity politics, your movie was nothing to begin with. https://t.co/tNDbNEGCas
— Possum Reviews (@ReviewsPossum) July 2, 2025
But here’s where things get even more revealing.
When the movie was screened in Arizona back in 2023, the results were a gut punch. Not a single person in the test audience said they’d pay money to see it in a theater. Not one. This wasn’t rural Wyoming, either— it was Arizona. So Pixar did what studios used to do: they took the feedback seriously and tried to salvage the story.
Molina, reportedly “hurt” after a meeting with Pixar leadership, left the project. Two new directors—Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi—took over. And although insiders claim the replacements were talented and well-liked, others weren’t so forgiving. According to members of Pixar’s internal LGBTQ group, the revised version “destroyed this beautiful work.” Because, apparently, if your animated space movie doesn’t center gender identity, it has no soul.
A former artist told THR that once those original themes were removed, Elio became “about totally nothing.” But what if the audience wasn’t looking for a message about identity? What if they just wanted a good story, characters they could root for, and maybe—just maybe—a movie their kids could enjoy without feeling like they were being handed a political pamphlet?
Here’s the kicker: instead of reflecting on the creative choices, some Pixar staff are blaming the audience. You know, the actual people who buy tickets. The same public they once delighted with stories like Toy Story and The Incredibles are now seen as the problem. Because how dare families reject a film with a five-minute trash-fashion monologue and no clear plot? The arrogance is almost cinematic.
Pixar has released a new video to promote ‘Elio’ in new TikTok:
“Stop complaining that Disney doesn’t make original stories if you don’t show up to movie theaters and support them in the first place!” pic.twitter.com/5MOtve7GIL
— ToonHive (@ToonHive) June 29, 2025
And now, after the dust has settled and the returns are in, the real spin begins. Former staff are mourning the version that didn’t make it, claiming that leadership “sanded down” Elio’s queerness into bland masculinity. But they’re skipping over the most important fact: even that toned-down version flopped. Miserably.
So what exactly was in the original cut that Pixar didn’t think would fly? And if the audience hated the final version this much… how bad was the first one?
