"Elio" Is A Movie That Children Doesn't Care About

The twentieth of June marked the opening day of "Elio", Pixar studio’s newest animated feature. According to Variety, that day also marked Pixar’s worst box-office opening ever — US$ 21 million, which pales in comparison to the animation’s budget: US$ 150 million.

Coming just a week after the release of "How to Train Your Dragon", Pixar is competing with another major animation studio: Dreamworks. As "How to Train Your Dragon" is Dreamworks' first live-action remake and highly anticipated, the release garners much more attention than Pixar's newest original. This leads to "Elio" being overshadowed in the box office, as both movies are catered towards a similar audience: families and children.

Elio’s lack of success also points to an important characteristic of the modern cinematic scene. According to IndieWire, the current movie landscape is dominated by remakes, sequels, and spin-offs.

In the coming months, highly anticipated movies are dominated by titles like "Jurassic World: Rebirth" and "Superman". A plethora of viewers are opting for the familiar when looking for movies to watch in theaters. Streaming services generally have higher viewership than theatrical releases, especially after the pandemic. This means that the most well-performing movies post-pandemic have been familiar in some way, hence the large quantity of franchise-driven content.

Post-pandemic, Pixar has been struggling to cement itself as the premier animation studio for original movies, especially with Pixar’s larger budget for animated features in comparison to other studios. For example, Dreamworks’ "Wild Robot" (2024) grossed over US$ 300 million with a budget of only US$ 78 million. In contrast, Elio marks a lower budget than past animated features (which usually hover around US$ 200 million), but Elio’s US$ 150 million budget provides a significantly higher bar for Pixar to reach in order to make a profit.

Using a small sample of children who watched "How to Train Your Dragon", reports revealed that only 5 percent are interested in the main character of "Elio". Most doesn't want to watch it or cared about it to shell money. Bottomline: it's a character nobody wants to see.