Pixar’s Strategy Change Is A Worrying Sign For The Studio’s Upcoming Sci-Fi Movie

Pixar is known for crafting beautiful stories that have an impact on audiences across all demographics, but as the studio reevaluates its strategy moving forward, it could be creating a disaster for its upcoming sci-film, Elio. While Pixar has seen immense success over the past decades, the studio’s ability to continue dominating the animation space has been questioned after some missteps. Lightyear, for example, was deemed an absolute box office failure, and Elemental‘s box office debut numbers were low after poor marketing on Disney’s part. This has led the studio head to address how Pixar will be making changes moving forward in order to ensure future success.

Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter explained how Pixar will change in the wake of Elemental. He wants to take another look at projects currently in the works to ensure that the films are in line with the values and ideas that have allowed them to connect with audiences on such a deep level in the first place. While it may make sense in the future for the studio to return to simpler storylines and create fewer worlds with abstract characters that are harder for younger audiences to connect to, it’d make the most sense to put this re-shift on hold and not make any changes to Pixar’s upcoming movie Elio.

Pixar Changing Elio Would Be A Mistake At This Point

Although Pixar reevaluating its content strategy moving forward might be a smart move, it doesn’t make much sense to change Elio at this point. The information revealed about the movie has already garnered a lot of positive attention, as it’s exciting that this is a new Pixar story that is not another remake. In order for Pixar to make good on their plan to return to their simpler roots, there would have to be major changes made to Elio, a movie that seems to be quite different from their classic films like Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

Pixar changing anything major with Elio at this point could actually prove negative, as audiences may feel a great deal of disappointment after looking forward to the original storyline, and that might hurt the movie’s success. It would create the same exact problem that Elemental faced, with the marketing materials not matching the film’s real story and causing box office numbers to not be up to par with their previous releases.

Elio Had Already Fixed Pixar’s Biggest Elemental Problem

The biggest problem that Elemental faced during its opening was that audiences did not have a clear understanding of what the film was about. This was due to poor marketing on Disney’s part, as the initial trailers and teasers focused on the fact that Element City had residents who fell into different categories based on their elements. There was little shown about the actual storyline, including it being based on stories of immigration and having a Romeo and Juliet type of relationship. This led to Elemental having one of the lowest Pixar debuts of all time.

Elio has already done a much better job at marketing, fixing Elemental‘s major mistake. Viewers can clearly tell what the movie is about from the trailer. The promotional materials clearly convey that the film is going to be about a young boy named Elio who is transported across the galaxy when he’s thought to be the ambassador of Earth. Since the trailer is clear, audiences have enough information to make an informed decision whether they want to watch it, which was not the case for Elemental. Considering Elio is off to a strong start, the studio should refrain from changing anything.