I think this sort of highlights where so much modern cinema has gone wrong. If you strip away the identity politics and there’s no meaning left then the movie was never going to be good.
They hide behind accusations of homophobia or racism to shield themselves from criticism.
Per THR, multiple Pixar staffers have released a scathing report on Elio's development. Here are the key highlights:
- Pixar massively changed Elio after the original cut was test screened, and not a single person raised their hand when asked if they’d pay to see the film in a movie theater.
- A Pixar staffer says, “The Elio that is in theaters right now is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original.”. “Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and Elio just becomes about totally nothing,”
- The budget was “well north of 200 million”, while other reports suggest the film was 150 Million.
- Originally, Elio was written and presented to be much more queer-coded, a reflection of Adrian Molina himself and his upbringing, but this notion was cut entirely, along with scenes like photo's in Elio's room involving a male crush.
- Pixar employees say that studio executives themselves cut queer elements from ‘Elio’ and the decision did not come from Disney: “A lot of people like to blame Disney, but the call is coming from inside the house. A lot of it is obeying-in-advance behavior, coming from the higher execs at Pixar.”
- Former Pixar assistant editor Sarah Ligatich, who provided feedback during Elio production as a member of the company’s internal LGBTQ group PixPRIDE said that a number of creatives working on the film stepped down after the directors shared their first cut of the revised 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.”
A lot to unpack, and even more in the report itself. It's a shame we might never actually see what the film was originally going to be or if it would've made the difference. As it stands, Elio's heading towards being one of the biggest box office flops the studio's ever had...