Pixar boss reveals why it reduce “Elio”’s LGBTQ storyline, says studio is making a film, not ‘remedy’

• Pixar's chief artistic officer defined why it reduce LGBTQ+ themes out of 2025's Elio.
• The animated movie underwent a serious artistic overhaul after a 2023 check screening.
• The inclusion of LGBTQ+ storylines and characters has traditionally been an uphill battle for Pixar creatives.

Pixar's chief artistic officer, Pete Docter, has revealed why the studio axed a queer storyline initially written into final 12 months's Elio.

The animated movie's main artistic overhaul included eradicating its LGBTQ+ themes as a result of the Disney-owned studio didn’t need it to cowl subjects that youngsters had but to debate with their dad and mom.

"We're making a film, not a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} of remedy," Docter stated in a brand new interview with the The Wall Street Journal.

The movie, which follows a lonely boy who’s beamed into outer house after being mistaken because the chief of Earth, had initially locked in director Adrian Molina, who based mostly the story off his personal childhood. However following a 2023 check screening, the place viewers stated they preferred the film however not sufficient to see it in theaters, the studio made massive adjustments to it.

Molina exited the mission, and Domee Shi (Turning Purple) and Madeline Sharafian (Burrow) turned the movie's administrators. All allusions to Elio's sexuality have been reduce, together with a pink bicycle he owned and a scene by which he imagined elevating a baby along with his male crush, a supply instructed the Journal.

Elio in the end opened to record-low numbers for Pixar, debuting to only $20.8 million domestically and $14 million abroad. Ultimately, the movie earned $150 million worldwide — a powerful yield if not for the truth that it value $150 million to provide, along with international advertising charges. Per the Journal, Disney misplaced greater than $100 million making the film.

Pixar creatives and staffers have fought an uphill battle with regards to spotlighting LGBTQ+ characters and queer themes in its tasks. Whereas some Disney movies have featured transient references to LGBTQ+ characters, they’re normally minor or background roles. Up to now, the one LGBTQ-focused work launched from Pixar is the short film Out, which premiered on the Disney+ streaming platform.

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In December 2024, Leisure Weekly realized that Pixar had dropped a storyline that will have featured a transgender character as a part of the studio's first-ever long-form TV collection, Win or Lose. The character remained within the present, however the plot level revolving round her gender was excised from the script, a change that included considerably chopping down her dialogue.

On the time, a spokesperson for Disney stated in an announcement supplied to EW, "Relating to animated content material for a youthful viewers, we acknowledge that many dad and mom would like to debate sure topics with their kids on their very own phrases and timeline."

One month prior, reviews emerged that the corporate had shelved an episode of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur that featured a trans lady collaborating at school sports activities. Derrick Malik Johnson, a storyboard artist who labored on the collection, linked the choice to the re-election of Republican candidate Donald Trump, writing in a now-deleted social media publish, "One of many tasks (episode) I labored on is getting shelved due to which celebration that received the current election? It breaks my coronary heart figuring out this impactful and wonderful [episode] is now about to be thought-about a misplaced media episode."

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Earlier than that, in 2022, Pixar workers banded collectively to talk out in opposition to Disney's actions surrounding Florida's "Don't Say Homosexual" invoice, additionally expressing disappointment within the firm's strategy to LGBTQ+ storylines.

"We at Pixar have personally witnessed stunning tales, stuffed with various characters, come again from Disney company critiques shaved all the way down to crumbs of what they as soon as have been," learn a letter signed by "Management from the LGBTQIA+ Workers of Pixar & Their Allies."

The letter continued, "Almost each second of overtly homosexual affection is reduce at Disney's behest, no matter when there’s protest from each the artistic groups and govt management at Pixar. Even when creating LGBTQIA+ content material was the reply to fixing the discriminatory laws on this planet, we’re being barred from creating it."

Bob Chapek, Disney's CEO on the time, penned a response, apologizing to the corporate's LGBTQ+ workers and vowing to stop all political donations within the state of Florida. This was adopted by the restoration of a same-sex kiss beforehand reduce from the 2022 Pixar launch Lightyear.

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