This is the second Pixar box office bomb that got nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, with Onward being the first.
Acclaimed Flop: It was fairly well received by critics, but was a Box-Office Bomb. On top of that, its arrival on Disney+ on September 17, 2025 was Overshadowed by Controversy when the abrupt suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on the same day led to a mass boycott of the streaming service, with people cancelling subscriptions outright.
Actor Leaves, Character Dies: Production example. America Ferrera voiced Elio's mom in the original cut. She did not return for the re-cut due to scheduling conflicts and original director Adrian Molina's departure. As such, Elio's mom was removed and only mentioned as being deceased.
Backed by the Pentagon: The credits acknowledges the US Air Force and Space Force assisting the production staff in their research.
Box-Office Bomb: Budget, $150 million-$200+ million. Box office, $72,987,454 (domestic), $154,075,778 (worldwide). The film received a fairly positive response from critics and audiences who did see it, which wasn't enough to overcome delays, massive retooling and halfhearted marketing, not to mention a summerfullofstiffcompetition. The result was the lowest grossing Pixar film beyond those the COVID-19 pandemic impacted, doing even worse business than Disney's much-pilloried Snow White (2025) managed a few months prior.
The Italian dub has Lucio Corsi as the voice of Tegmen.
Children Voicing Children: Elio and Glordon are both voiced by child actors Yonas Kibreab and Remy Edgerly. The latter is the son of veteran voice actor Chris Edgerly, who also does additional voices for the film.
Creator Backlash: There are Pixar employees who worked on this film who expressed disdain for the final product, one calling it “a film about nothing” for the complete gutting of the themes Molina wanted to explore when it was retooled.
Dear Negative Reader: Pixar posted a TikTok with a woman chewing people out for not seeing a Pixar original, seeing it as contrary to many complaining about Disney as a whole making too many sequels. There was no mention of the Invisible Advertising Disney/Pixar gave to the film.
Delayed Release Tie-In: The Happy Meal toys were released in spring 2024, reflecting the original release date (this also happened to fellow Disney production Captain America: Brave New World). Unusually for McDonald's, a second round of toys were released in June 2025 when the film finally came out.
Deleted Scene: 19 minutes of deleted scenes with some finished animation can be found in the blu-ray and digital releases, including a deleted scene from the original cut from director Adrian Molina called "Carver Legend", in which the Elio clone tests himself as a trooper in the Carver Camp.
Focus Group Ending: Not just the ending, but the entire film was completely retooled following a test screening where, reportedly, not a single person in the audience said they would consider seeing the movie in theaters. Although it's not absolutely clear what the original story was, the higher-ups wanted it to have wider appeal — but it didn't help in the end, as it had the worst opening weekend gross of any Pixar movie.
The Foreign Subtitle: In Vietnam, the title is Elio: Cậu bé đến từ Trái Đất (Elio: The Boy from Earth).
Invisible Advertising: Having the misfortune to be released between two higher-priority Disney films, Lilo & Stitch (2025) and The Fantastic Four: First Steps (both were also based on established IP, with the latter part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Elio didn't have much time to get a full-blown marketing push in the final few weeks prior to opening. That the film was heavily delayed — the very first teaser was released in June 2023 with Elemental, back when it was to be a March 2024 release — and retooled probably didn't help its chances.
Mid-Development Genre Shift: The film was originally a coming of age story with a message of self acceptance, Elio was originally heavily implied to be gay, reflecting the director Adrian Molina's experience growing up discovering his sexuality. After Pete Docter created a mandate for Pixar to pivot away from personal stories in favor of films that have "universal appeal", the film was heavily reworked, which ultimately didn't help it from becoming a box-office bomb.
Quite a few scenes in the first teaser don't appear in the final film because the entire storyline was changed in the Retool.
In the teaser for the retooled version, when Elio is found by two boys named Bryce and Caleb who ask him if he's okay, Elio states he is trying to get abducted. He quickly clarifies he means an Alien Abduction upon seeing the teens' confused looks. He then lifts his shirt to reveal a birthmark in the shape of the Orion Nebula, which they suggest he has checked out by a doctor. This scene is not in the actual movie. This might be because Elio saying he wants to get abducted (before clarifying that he meant by aliens) was ultimately decided to be too far a joke.
Matthias Schweighöfer, the voice of Tegmen, voices the character in English and his native German.
Similarly, Naomi Watanabe, Auva's voice actress, voices the character in English and her native Japanese.
Orphaned Reference: Elio's homemade cape has plastic utensils and trash on it in a nod to an earlier draft of the script having environmentalist themes that were largely cut from the final release.
The Other Marty: America Ferrera was originally cast as Olga and it's her voice in the original teaser trailer. However, due to scheduling conflicts (and, according to the Hollywood Reporter article, objections to the original director being replaced), she was unable to return as Olga for the re-cut, resulting in Zoe Saldaña taking her place.
The movie was originally slated for release on March 1, 2024, before being pushed back to June 13, 2025 during the SAG-AFTRA strike, though the delay would later also be attributed to a Troubled Production. Pixar issued the three films that were released to Disney+ (Soul, Luca and Turning Red) to theaters nationwide around the time Elio originally supposed to come out.
It was then pushed back by one week to June 20, 2025 to avoid direct competition with the live-action How to Train Your Dragon. However, that was the day 28 Years Later opened and Elio ended up finishing third in the box office on opening weekend behind both HTTYD (which won its second weekend in a row) and 28 Years Later (which posted its best opening weekend in its franchise's history), making Disney's move all for naught.
Short Run in Peru: The movie came out in Italy, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Indonesia and South Korea on June 18, 2025, which was two days before its American release.
Troubled Production: An example similar to that of The Good Dinosaur. Adrian Molina was originally the director and America Ferrera voiced Elio’s mom, all of this being set in stone for the teaser trailer. However, the film was delayed over a year due to a writers' strike, with Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi taking over from Molina and her role being rewritten as Elio’s aunt and recast with Zoe Saldaña. Reportedly, a big reason for Molina stepping down as director and the film being heavily rewritten was because no one at a test screening of the rough cut would pay money to see it in theaters, even though they liked the film. Following the film's catastrophic opening weekend, interviews with former Pixar employees that worked on the film indicate widespread dissatisfaction with the story being completely retooled, which also bloated the budget from the originally reported $150 million to possibly over $200 million.
Vindicated by Cable: Downplayed; it was the top-rated film on Disney+ the week of its streaming release, but 1) new movie releases on Disney+ are few and far between in 2025, and 2) it was just as people were cancelling the service over the Jimmy Kimmel Live! suspension.
Write What You Know: Adrian Molina based much of Elio's character off of himself as a child, such as how he had a mother that worked for the military.
Harley Jessup worked on before he retired.