Notizie

The Aristocats won’t be receiving a live-action remake anytime soon as Disney scraps the project. More details below.

Disney has been churning out its live-action remakes for quite some time now. The studio has mostly prioritised those as well as sequels to their existing franchises while leaving the original films to Pixar. If you haven’t checked out Luca or Turning Red, we recommend that you do. They’re great.

We reported in 2022 that 1970’s The Aristocats was the latest classic Disney film to be getting a live-action remake and that Questlove was hired to direct it.

The Summer Of Soul director has revealed that the project has been...

Three major blockbusters all arrive on streaming this week, as does one of the year’s most acclaimed low-budget independent films. James Gunn’s highly anticipated follow-up to “Superman” makes its long-awaited premiere on HBO Max this week as well, while Netflix and Hulu subscribers have a trio of promising new TV shows to look forward to. You should not, in other words, have any trouble finding something new to watch at home over the coming few days.

Here are the eight best new movies and shows you can stream this weekend.

“The Bad Guys 2” (DreamWorks) “The Bad Guys 2” (2025)

One of the year’s most fun animated comedies,...

Pixar’s space adventure Elio has fans eager for its Disney Plus debut—let’s dive into this cosmic journey with a fresh perspective!

What You Need to Know… Elio isn’t on Disney Plus yet, released June 20, 2025, with a projected 90-120 day theatrical window. Directed by Adrian Molina, it follows a boy mistaken for Earth’s ambassador by aliens. Controversy over cut LGBTQ+ and Dei elements stirred debates, with some parents boycotting Disney over those issues, putting Disney in a tough spot. Box office flop: $20.8 million opening, $130.2 million worldwide against $250 million budget. Disney’s streaming strategy for Pixar films may have softened theater turnout—let’s unpack it together!

Is Elio Available on Disney Plus Yet?

As of August 13, 2025, Elio remains off Disney Plus, having premiered in theaters on June 20, 2025. This Pixar animated tale features 11-year-old Elio Solis, voiced by Yonas Kibreab, whisked away by aliens who think he’s Earth’s leader,...

“Freakier Friday” is in theaters now, and as the title promises, things get even freakier this time around.

Directed by Nisha Ganatra, the sequel to 2003’s “Freakier Friday” sees Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reunited as Tess and Anna Coleman, respectively. Anna has a daughter of her own now, and is gaining a second one with her impending nuptials.

Of course, this leads to not just one body swap, but two — making for a 4-way switch in total. It can be hard to keep track of just that, let alone everyone around them, so we’ve gone ahead and done it for you.

Here’s who you need to know.

Jamie Lee Curtis as Tess Coleman in Disney’s Freakier Friday. Photo by Glen Wilson. © 2025 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis)

Dr. Tess Coleman is still a therapist, but these days she does her work via podcast.

Though it may not come as a big surprise, a new report has revealed that Disney+ greatly harmed the Marvel Studios, "Star Wars," and Pixar brands in recent years. The rise of streaming was accelerated in 2020 largely in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which shut down theaters all over the world. The Mouse House had already launched Disney+, but the circumstances forced the company to double down. That may have helped it get a leg-up in the streaming game initially, but it came at the expense of some of the studio's biggest brands.

A new report by The Wrap has dived deep into the topic, revealing the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the "Star Wars" franchise, and the animation powerhouse Pixar have all suffered as a result of Disney+. It's a complicated issue but, in short, Disney+ created too much of what was once a scarce thing and made it accessible to...

(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

"There was a couple years, though, where it was not a big punchline, but where if it came up, you had to disavow it." Those are the words of director Akiva Schaffer, one third of the comedy group The Lonely Island, talking about their 2007 comedy "Hot Rod" on "The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast" in 2024. "Even on talk shows, you'd have to, like, really make sure you made fun of it before they did."

Time has been kind to "Hot Rod," with the film achieving cult status over the years. In its day though, the comedy was a flat out flop. Despite Schaffer's success alongside his partners Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone on "Saturday Night Live," this pattern of flop-turned-cult-classic would...

This post contains spoilers for "The Naked Gun" (2025).

Other than starring in the beloved sitcom "Cheers" as fact-spouting mailman Cliff Clavin, actor John Ratzenberger is probably best known for making repeated voice cameos in the many films of Pixar Animation. Ratzenberger has appeared in almost all of Pixar's movies in some kind of minor voice role, though his presence in them has waned recently, with "Luca," "Turning Red," "Lightyear," "Elemental," and "Elio" missing his presence as a sort of good luck charm. Thankfully, we have another cameo tradition that has just picked up steam again, thanks to the release of the "Naked Gun" reboot.

For those who may not recall, in addition to delivering endless slapstick bits, meta laughs, and silly puns, there's one prominent constant that has popped up in every previous installment of the "Naked Gun" film franchise, and he goes by the name "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Plot: Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) runs afoul of an evil tech genius (Danny Huston) while being aided by a mysterious femme fatale (Pamela Anderson).

Review: I did something I hadn’t done in a long time at the early screening of The Naked Gun I attended earlier this week — I laughed myself silly in a movie theatre. It’s been years since I’ve seen a movie this funny theatrically, and boy did I miss the sound of a theatre full of people cackling so loud I occasionally missed a joke. I’ve missed comedy, and this was a really good one.

I’ll admit, I was wary of a Naked Gun reboot. I love the original movies (even the much-maligned third), but it’s been a while since anyone did a laugh-a-minute spoof like this. That said, director Akiva Schaffer turned out to be the right guy to tackle the formula.

Five Members Of 4*Town From Pixar’s Turning Red ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

Before Saja Boys from Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters, Pixar’s 4*Town took over the internet as a fictional boy band. 4*Town was featured in Pixar’s film Turning Red, which was released in March 2022. This band became a viral sensation upon the movie’s release. The group was a hit because it presented a blend of nostalgia for early‑2000s pop with modern styles.

Pixar’s 4*Town: Real-life Inspiration, Music Charts, & Subsequent Success

Director Domee Shi described 4*Town as a tribute to the 2000s boy bands, such as *Nsync, Backstreet Boys, O‑Town, and 98 Degrees, as per Marie Claire. The group also features a striking similarity to modern K‑pop groups like BTS and Ateez to add a flair of modern boy bands. Director Shi mentioned that the group started with four members, but they kept the...

Let’s dance! Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia (“Everything To Me”) have joined Hasan Minhaj (“Patriot Act”) in the Netflix Bollywood comedy feature “Best of the Best.”

Lena Khan (“Flora & Ulysses”) will direct the film from a script by Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam. Khan also previously directed several episodes of the Ramakrishnan-led series “Never Have I Ever” for the streamer.

The film follows two childhood best friends, Maya and Anjali, who join their college’s competitive Bollywood dance team only to discover that the road to winning the national championship is far more raucous and cutthroat than they ever imagined.

On many college campuses, dance teams have emerged as spaces for South Asian community building and cultural connection. The dance competition circuit brings teams from different parts of the country together to showcase their talents and perform to determine who is, as the film’s title puts it,...

Disney recently made a surprising move by canceling an original animated movie about a Persian princess that was supposed to come out in 2024. The reason? The poor box office performances of their two latest original animated films, Strange World and Wish.

Both Strange World and Wish were expected to do well but ended up disappointing. Wish earned around $255 million worldwide but had a $200 million budget, which is low compared to hits like Moana and Zootopia. Strange World also struggled to make a strong impact.

These two flops made Disney rethink its plans for new original animated movies.

Industry insiders say Disney quietly removed the Persian princess project from its release calendar. Instead of taking a chance on a new original film, the company is focusing more on sequels and franchises. For example, the Moana sequel, which has already earned over $1 billion worldwide, is now a priority.

This isn’t just about Disney.

Two recent Disney movies, Strange World and Wish, both original animated films, did poorly at the box office, leading to big changes in Disney’s plans for new movies. Because these films flopped, Disney reportedly canceled a new animated movie about a Persian princess that was supposed to come out in 2024.

Strange World and Wish were highly anticipated, but neither met expectations. Wish earned about $255 million worldwide against a $200 million budget, which is much less than Disney’s past hits like Moana and Zootopia.

Meanwhile, Strange World also struggled, and together, these disappointing results made Disney rethink its approach to original animated films.

According to industry sources, Disney quietly pulled the Persian princess movie off the schedule. Instead of taking a risk on another original film, the studio shifted focus to projects connected to successful franchises, like a Moana sequel, which recently made over $1 billion at the global box office.

After Elio flopped at the box office, Disney and Pixar are looking to bounce back with their next animated feature. The first trailer has been released for Hoppers, which will hop into theaters next spring.

Hoppers takes place in a world where scientists have discovered how to 'hop' human consciousness into lifelike robotic animals, allowing people to communicate with animals. The teaser trailer introduces audiences to animal lover Mabel Tanaka, voiced by Piper Curda, "who seizes an opportunity to use the technology, uncovering mysteries within the animal world that are beyond anything she could have imagined," according to the movie's official synopsis. One of those mysteries, as the trailer reveals, is that animals are totally okay with being eaten by one another, since predators have to "eat someone" to stay alive. Check out the teaser trailer and poster for Hoppers below.

Poster via Pixar

Most of the voice cast for...

Update: Superman has arrived and the early indications in North America are good as the reboot, a DC Studios test case for the reconstituted studio’s first release, scored a solid $125m launch through Warner Bros – several million ahead of initial Sunday estimates.

The total three-day box office in North America was an estimated $197.7m, and the $4.7bn year-to-date number is 15% ahead of 2024 by the same stage, Comscore said.

Superman is the latest entry in a long-running series of adaptations and is screening onmore than 10,000 screens in 4,135 locations. It delivered Warner Bros’ second debut of over $100m this year after A Minecraft Movie on $162.8m,...

Superman has arrived and the early indications in North America are good as the reboot, a DC Studios test case for the reconstituted studio’s first release, scored a solid $122m launch through Warner Bros on more than 10,000 screens in 4,135 locations.

The latest entry in a long-running series of adaptations delivered Warner Bros’ second debut of over $100m this year after A Minecraft Movie on $162.8m; the third best opening of 2025 so far behind the aforementioned and Lilo & Stitch on $146m;the second best opening for a Superman film behind Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice on $166m in 2016; the...

Pixar's new animated movie crosses a major box office milestone after a disappointing opening. The studio aims to release one original animated movie per year to focus on quality, except for sequel releases, which sometimes lead to a year having two films.

Recently, the studio brought beloved animated films such as Inside Out 2, Elemental, Turning Red, and Lightyear to theaters. Except for Inside Out 2, which became Pixar's highest-grossing film of all time, Elemental, Lightyear, and Turning Red all suffered different levels of challenges at the box office.

Despite initial underperformance, Elemental saw rare box office growth and ended up being a sleeper hit for the studio. So far, Pixar's upcoming slate includes Hoppers, coming out in March 2026, Toy Story 5, in June 2026, and Gatto, scheduled for 2027.

Elio Passes $100 Million Box Office Milestone The Movie Is Approaching Its Fourth Weekend In Theaters

Released on June 20, Pixar's new animated sci-fi movie,...

Viola Davis has the kind of star power that's not often seen nowadays. She gives off classic Hollywood vibes, not becoming too accessible to the public, keeping her personal life private, but is seen just enough to keep fans wanting more. The Academy Award-winner not only becomes a character, but she also ensures audiences see her as the character and not the beloved star behind the role. From The Woman King to Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, The Suicide Squad, The Help, and more, there's no placing Davis in a box. This year, she lept into action courtesy of Amazon, and has found huge success on streaming.

Earlier this year, playing President Sutton in the Amazon MGM Studios film G20was added to her list of stellar performances, and the film has been a massive hit on Prime Video since its April 10, 2025, release date. According to Deadline, the Davis-led film...

Disney+ subscribers are rediscovering Elemental. Two years after its theatrical run, the animated movie is back on the streaming charts, along with another fan-favorite Pixar flick.

Per FlixPatrol, as of July 7, Elemental is No. 10 on Disney+'s Top Movies Worldwide list, with Ratatouille a few spots higher at No. 6. The Pixar movie's return to streaming dominance comes almost two years after it became the most-watched movie debut on Disney+ of 2023 with 26.4 million views over its first five days on the service. At the time, The Walt Disney Company also reported that Elemental was among Disney+'s Top 10 movie premieres of all time and was the most-viewed animated movie premiere since Turning Red, another Pixar title, dropped onto the streamer in March 2022.

Directed by Peter Sohn, Elemental is set in Element City, where Fire-, Water-, Earth-, and Air-residents live together, following "the quick-witted and fiery Ember (voiced by Leah Lewis), whose...

Now that the dust is settling on Pixar’s box office bomb Elio, reports suggest that the movie had a tumultuous production that saw it being retooled essentially from the ground up, with original director Adrian Molina opting to drop out. The finished version received positive reviews, but nobody showed up to watch it. Or, at least, not as many folks as Disney would’ve liked. The studio possibly preempted this, as it restricted publicity costs on the movie ahead of its release a couple of weeks ago. This was seen as an unexpected move, seeing as Pixar had delivered its biggest-ever hit — Inside Out 2 — only last year.

That film’s $1.7 billion global haul was seen as the kiss of life that the studio so desperately needed after a difficult post-pandemic run. During that time, films such as Turning Red, Soul, and Luca skipped theatrical releases altogether. Employees were reportedly laid off,...

What do audiences lose when studios swap the magic of the theatre for yet another forgettable big-budget release that quietly lands on streaming and is forgotten before the next boring release comes around? Does anyone remember Guy Ritchie’s “Fountain of Youth”? It came out just a few months ago on Apple TV as an original film with a whopping $180 million budget. Twenty years ago, the idea of such a high-budget film not releasing in the cinemas for wide audiences would have been almost unthinkable.

The film itself received mixed-to-negative reviews; however, the worst part about it is just how utterly forgettable it was. Start to finish, this movie unfolds as an empty void of soulless entertainment that almost demands you turn your brain off so as not to be distracted by its deeply flawed script. It’s certainly not the first high-budget film to be made in this vein,...

After its latest film “Elio” flopped at the box office on its opening weekend, Pixar is once again at the center of controversy.

Anonymous sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Pixar CEO Pete Docter opted to have “Elio” be stripped of its gay coded themes, much as was the case for “Lightyear,” “Luca,” and most recently, “Inside Out 2.” This in part led to both the exits of original director Adrian Molina and later, actress America Ferrera.

“A lot of people like to blame Disney, but the call is coming from inside the house,” a former Pixar artist told THR. “A lot of it is obeying-in-advance behavior, coming from the higher execs at Pixar. […] It was pretty clear through the production of the first version of the film that [studio leaders] were constantly sanding down these moments in the film that alluded to Elio’s sexuality of being queer.”

IndieWire has reached...

Pixar's latest film, Elio, has made headlines, but for all the wrong reasons. The sci-fi animated family film earned the studio's lowest opening weekend of all time with just $21 million. Despite solid reviews from critics, the film hasn't quite performed up to the Pixar standard and may not have the long legs at the box office that Elemental did back in 2023. Elio had a long road to the big screen, having been delayed a whole year, and an initial teaser trailer from 2023 that showed a different film than what audiences saw. The Hollywood Reporter has detailed an extensive account of what happened behind the scenes of Elio, and it certainly isn't good.

The report stated that Elio was initially portrayed as a queer-coded character, although the movie was never intended to be a coming-out story. Various changes made by Pixar leadership led to this being downplayed and all but removed from the final film,...

Those who worked at Pixar while its latest film release, Elio, was in production were delighted by footage they saw roughly two years ago. Among the moments cited as favorites by those at the animation studio at the time included a sequence in which the titular boy collected trash on the beach and turned it into homemade apparel that included a pink tank top; the movie’s team would refer to Elio showing this off to a hermit crab as his “trash-ion show.”

But if you bought a ticket to Elio and don’t remember seeing this, it’s not just that you chose the wrong time to refill your soda. According to multiple insiders who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, Elio was initially portrayed as a queer-coded character, reflecting original director Adrian Molina’s identity as an openly gay filmmaker. Other sources say that Molina did not intend the...

After a record-low opening for Pixar, Elio just achieved a major box office milestone. Pixar's latest release tells the story of the titular Elio (Yonas Kibreab), as he is taken to the galactic Communiverse. He is forced to try to save the Communiverse from a devastating warlord, while also learning more about friendship and the universe itself.

Elio had an underwhelming box office, earning just $35 million worldwide during its debut weekend. That's considering the movie has a budget of $150 million at a low estimate. While Elio's 84% Rotten Tomatoes score was impressive, its box-office performance needed to improve.

Despite opening to a painful tally domestically, week 2 saw a relatively low drop for the family-friendly flick. Per Deadline, Elio earned $3.2 million domestically on Friday and is expected to have a three-day total of $11-12 million. With just a 48% drop, it should finish the weekend at around $42 million, if it achieves the higher end of projections.

Aside from the odd blockbuster here and there, movie theaters are generally not seeing the same number of people buying tickets as they did before the Covid-19 pandemic.

It's within this challenging landscape that Pixar has released its latest original film, Elio, which has now infamously opened as the lowest-grossing Pixar film of all-time, despite glowing reviews.

Prior to the film's release, Pixar Chief Creative Officer Peter Docter was a special guest at Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Summit, where he acknowledged the shift in the movie industry. “It’s a rough time, and all we can do is try to make movies that I think are led by us. We have to believe in them.”

He later added, “It takes as much work and effort to make something that doesn’t make money as it does for something that does. And you can’t really plan on this stuff.

It’s hard to believe nearly a decade has passed since Pixar’s Coco, an original, music-infused fantastical yarn about a Mexican boy who travels to Land of the Dead, grossed nearly $800 million at the global box office to rank No. 11 on the year’s list of top-grossing films. That was in 2017, a time when no one could have anticipated it would be quickly followed by a dramatic downturn in the appetite for original animated fare.

For Pixar, that downturn hit a new tipping point with the debut of Elio over the June 20-22 weekend. The original summer tentpole, about an orphaned boy whose wish to be abducted by aliens comes true, debuted to a dismal $20.8 million domestically and $14 million overseas in what’s by far a record-low opening for the storied animation studio co-founded by the late Steve Jobs and later acquired by Disney.

Publicly, Disney execs are putting...

Alas, poor Elio — we knew you... kind of.

Pixar's latest original animated feature failed to soar to galactic box-office heights during its opening weekend, instead falling back to Earth with the lowest bow in the studio's history. The sci-fi family comedy barely cleared the $20 million hurdle, landing at $21 million behind the $30 million posted by Danny Boyle's zombie picture 28 Years Later and the $37 million nabbed by last week's repeat champ, How to Train Your Dragon.

Elio's ill fortune wasn't entirely unexpected; the film was originally slated to open last summer, but got the boot to 2025 in favor of Inside Out 2, which became the highest-grossing movie — animated or live-action — of 2024. The delay clearly didn't result in any additional anticipation for the lushly animated feature, which follows the titular space-obsessed orphan (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) on an improbable journey to the stars.

Here's what you need to know about...

The box office failure of Elio shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying one of Pixar’s better recent films!

It seems hard to believe how Pixar has suffered in the last five years. Perhaps it was a poor omen that Onward became the first movie that fell victim to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Just one week after the fantasy film opened, movie theaters started shutting down, killing its box office.

That would sadly also send Soul to Disney+ along with Luca, and a bit understandable then, with theaters still mostly closed. However, Turning Red more than deserved a theatrical release rather than going to Disney+, while Lightyear was Pixar’s first major flop.

Elemental had a rough start but grew legs to succeed, while Inside Out 2 was a hit. Sadly, it appears Pixar’s latest, Elio, isn’t going to reach those heights. The sci-fi comedy opened with a weak $30 million,...

Holy Smurf! Paramount is rolling out the blue carpet today for a character poster debut bigger than Gargamel’s ambitions to turn the pint-sized blue wonders into gold or Smurf soup! The latest Smurfs adventure comes to theaters on July 18, with Chris Miller directing from a screenplay by Pam Brady. The new batch of Smurfs character posters highlights the primary players in the live-action animated hybrid and the film’s stacked cast.

Here’s the official synopsis for Smurfs, courtesy of Paramount:

When Papa Smurf (John Goodman) is mysteriously taken by evil wizards, Razamel and Gargamel, Smurfette (Rihanna) leads the Smurfs on a mission into the real world to save him. With the help of new friends, the Smurfs must discover what defines their destiny to save the universe.

Smurfs features an all-star voice cast, including Rihanna as Smurfette, Nick Offerman as Ken, Jp Karliak as Gargamel & Razamel, Daniel Levy as Joel,...

[Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for “Elio”].

Pixar’s “Elio” is the latest reminder of how hard it is for original animation to succeed theatrically, especially with the kind of personal stories being made under Pete Docter’s leadership. The storytelling struggle was so difficult, in fact, that it prompted a course correction. First-time director Adrian Molina (“Coco”) departed his alien abduction comedy-adventure to rejoin Lee Unkrich on “Coco 2” as co-director once again. But he tapped “Coco” story artist Madeline Sharafian to succeed him, trusting her to complete his pet project.

Molina was in good hands: Sharafian deeply connected with “Elio’s” theme of loneliness and the search for belonging, and contributed some wonderful early concept drawings. She even stuck up for Molina during meetings with the Brain Trust when there was pushback.

“I remember being in some of those later meetings with Adrian fighting for some of the scenes in the movie,” Sharafian told IndieWire.

Disney’s Pixar animated movies are experiencing a decline in popularity, with their original titles failing to score big at the box office. The studio recently released its latest feature film, Elio, in theaters. The sci-fi adventure movie garnered positive reviews from critics, resulting in a strong Rotten Tomatoes score.

However, the critical success did not translate to box office success, which is quickly becoming a sad trend for Pixar movies. As a result, Elio‘s middling box office numbers suggest that original Pixar movies are bound to struggle to draw large numbers. Here’s why that might be bad news for cinema.

Elio‘s impressive Rotten Tomatoes score fails to score big at the box office

Pixar’s latest animated movie to hit the big screens is Elio, a heartfelt tale of an eleven-year-old boy who accidentally becomes the intergalactic ambassador of planet Earth and must face the warlord...

Update June 22, 2025: How to Train Your Dragon continues to soar at the box office, earning $37 million over the June 20-22 weekend. Universal's live-action remake has now reached a worldwide total of $358 million in just two weeks.

Meanwhile, Sony's 28 Years Later emerged with a solid $30 million, marking the franchise's biggest opening ever and tripling the $10 million debut of 2002's 28 Days Later. The horror film added another $30 million from international audiences, bringing its worldwide total to $60 million — just $15 million short of 28 Days Later's $75 million lifetime theatrical gross.

Disney/Pixar's Elio delivered the studio's worst debut ever, earning just $21 million domestically. This performance lags behind Pixar's previous lowest openers — 1995’s Toy Story ($29.1 million), and 2023's Elemental ($29.6 million). Despite glowing audience reception — an A CinemaScore overall and an A+ from viewers under 25 — the film faces an uphill battle with its $150 million production budget. Overseas, Elio brought in a modest $14 million,...

Clearly, Elio isn’t destined to have the same success that Pixar and Walt Disney enjoyed just last summer thanks to their worldwide billion-dollar blockbuster, Inside Out 2 — no, not even close. Inside Out 2 made an astonishing $154.2 million over its opening weekend at the box office and went on to make $1.698 billion globally to become the highest-grossing film of 2024. Fast-forward a year later, even with all its praise from the critics and audiences, and poor Elio still went down as one of the lowest-grossing debuts of all time for Pixar. In fact, apart from Soul and Turning Red, Elio set the record for the worst premiere in the modern era of the studio’s history.

Elio seemed poised to challenge How to Train Your Dragon and 28 Years Later for the top spot at this weekend’s box office. In fact, Boxoffice Pro’s long-range forecast predicted Pixar’s...

After a disappointing post-pandemic run, Pixar bounced back last year with the record-breaking Inside Out 2. The movie didn’t merely outperform its predecessor, but it ended up becoming the highest-grossing animated movie ever released — a record that has since been broken by the Chinese blockbuster Ne Zha 2. For a while, it seemed like the studio’s problems were over after a particularly dark period that saw layoffs and losses. But its latest film, Elio, has sent it right back to square one. With barely a marketing push, Elio delivered the lowest opening in Pixar history, falling short of even the original Toy Story, which debuted three decades ago.

With $21 million domestically and another $14 million from overseas markets, Elio’s cumulative global box office debut stands at $35 million. Unlike other animation houses, which have drastically cut down costs in recent years, Pixar continues to spend top dollar on its projects.

A spunky, alien-obsessed preteen and undead army were no match at the box office against a loyal, fiery dragon.

Universal’s “How to Train Your Dragon” remake has remained No. 1 in North America despite the presence of two newcomers, Disney and Pixar’s intergalactic adventure “Elio” and Sony’s zombie thriller “28 Years Later.”

“Elio” has cratered in third place with $21 million from 3,750 theaters, ranking as the worst start in modern history for Pixar. Heading into the weekend, the otherworldly tale about a young boy who connects with aliens after getting mistaken for Earth’s intergalactic ambassador was aiming for $25 million to $30 million. The film, which cost $150 million to produce, added just $14 million overseas for a catastrophic global total of $35 million.

“This is a weak opening for Pixar,” says David A. Gross, who runs the FranchiseRe movie consulting firm. “These would be solid numbers for another original animation film, but this is Pixar,...

Pixar creatives explained how Elio's most unexpectedly beloved character was designed to be both cute and terrifying. Elio follows the story of a recently orphaned 11-year-old boy fascinated with space and aliens who gets abducted and mistakenly named Earth's official ambassador in an intergalactic council. Co-directed by Turning Red's Domee Shi, the film explores connection, grief, and identity. While the movieis packed with colorful worlds and cosmic creatures, the standout character is the visually strange but extremely heart-warming companion, Glordon. Now, the team behind Eliois opening up about how the character was brought to life.

Speaking with ScreenRant's Ash Crossan, Domee Shi and producer Mary Alice Drumm described how Glordon evolved from a simple idea into one of the most beloved elements of the film. According to Drumm, the design was inspired by a tardigrade, a microscopic "water bear." The creative team also emphasized that one of...

Despite its astounding reputation, Pixar has been struggling in recent years, but its recent animated release appears to be a return to its glory days. The studio, which specializes in animated movies, is best known for creating Toy Story (1995), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), and other major franchises. It even specializes in emotional one-off movies, including Up! (2009), Wall-e (2008), and Ratatouille (2007). Those various Pixar films helped to create a sparkling impression of the studio, but it has struggled in recent years.

The 2020s have been a difficult time for Pixar, as several projects have gone straight to streaming, like Turning Red (2022) and Soul (2020). Then, there was a lukewarm reception for movies like Lightyear (2022). Elemental proved to be an exception, as its long legs turned a $30 million opening into an impressive $485 million run. Inside Out 2 (2024) was another major win for the studio, earning $1.7 billion at the box office. While they had impressive totals,...

Ouch.

Universal’s live-action How to Train Your Dragon will have no trouble staying No. 1 in its second weekend with an estimated $35.7 million despite the entry of zombie sequel 28 Years Later and the animated Elio — which is headed for the lowest opening in the history of Pixar amid a crowded marketplace for family fare.

Danny Boyle’s zombie sequel, from Sony, topped Friday’s chart with $14 million, including $5.8 million in Thursday previews, but will be overtaken by How to Train Your Dragon, from the Universal-owned DreamWorks Animation, sometime on Saturday.

A few weeks ago, 28 Years Later was tracking to open to $35 million, with more bullish pundits thinking it could come in north of $40 million. Instead, it’s headed for a solid $30 million to $31 million domestic start. Similar to the family space, some are speculating that the horror marketplace may over-saturated, led by box office hit Final Destination: Bloodlines.

Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for “Elio,” now playing in theaters.

Disney Pixar’s latest animated feature, “Elio” centers on a young orphan boy who is desperate to be abducted by aliens.

The premise of the film igave the creatives a perfect opportunity to pay homage to great sci-fi classics, including “Alien” and John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” But the one film directors Domee Shi (“Turning Red”) and Madeline Sharafian (“Burrow”) referenced a lot was “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Shi explains, “We reference that movie a lot because it’s also about a guy who’s in love with space.” She adds, “We loved how that film gave the aliens a big drum roll and with the tone, you didn’t quite know were they friendly? What are their intentions? And we liked that aura of mystery for the Communiverse.”

Disney Pixar’s 28th feature was also...

Editor’s Note: this list was originally published in June 2023. It has since been updated to include Pixar’s latest output.

When you ask someone about their favorite Pixar film, the answer usually says less about the movie than it does about the person. The legendary animation studio has remained at the top of its game for years because of how its films use their big high-concept ideas to explore fundamental truths. A comedy about talking toys becomes a story about friendship and growing up; a kid’s movie about fish becomes an emotional tale of fatherhood; a film about a rat that likes to cook becomes a sneakily profound story about the nature of art and inspiration. The movies become very personal to each viewer, especially for those who’ve grown up with Pixar’s work and have seen its releases serve as milestones in their lives.

That said,...

Universal’ How to Train Your Dragon won the Juneteenth holiday box office race on Thursday with $9.7 million in ticket sales as it heads into its second weekend with an early domestic haul of nearly $125 million.

The live-action remake of DreamWorks Animation’s celebrated 2010 animated film is confident it will stay atop the chart in its sophomore outing despite the entry of two new summer event pics, Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later and Pixar’s Elio, both of which took advantage of the holiday by starting previews early in the day. (How to Train Your Dragon has a huge advantage in playing in Imax cinemas, and is eying bringing in another $35 million domestically this weekend.)

Boyle’s zombie sequel, from Sony, is reporting a preview gross of $5.8 million, enough to place second on Thursday — at least unofficially (previews grosses are ultimately folded into the opening-day gross, or in this instance,...

Musicals come in all shapes and sizes. You have the regular ones where there’s a narrative that’s furthered by songs, which are either sung by the actors or by playback singers. They can be in the live-action or animated format. Then there are concert films, which are essentially documentaries of the star’s live performances that are juxtaposed with some behind-the-scenes tidbits in order to underscore the effort, both physical and psychological, that is needed to pull off these worldwide tours. And then there are what I call album movies, which are made with the sole purpose of advertising a new song (or songs), and their narrative is wafer-thin so as to not distract viewers from the product that’s being sold. The entire Trolls franchise has consistently been used to promote Justin Timberlake’s latest songs. Jennifer Lopez’s This Is Me… Now: A Love Story was...

Pixar is back with a new animated film, and this time the legendary studio is taking viewers back to outer space. “Elio,” Pixar’s latest offering, comes from studio veterans Adrian Molina (“Coco”) and Madeline Sharafian (“Burrow”) and “Turning Red” director Domee Shi. It is a coming-of-age adventure film about an eccentric young boy whose dream of getting abducted by aliens miraculously — and unexpectedly — comes true.

Whether or not “Elio” will be bursting with the same Pixar magic present in many of the studio’s past hits remains to be seen. For now, here is how, when and where you can watch “Elio.”

When does “Elio” come out?

Disney is set to release “Elio” on Friday, June 20.

Is “Elio” streaming?

Pixar’s straight-to-streaming era is over for the time being. “Elio” is a theatrical release, which means it will only be available to see in movie theaters for the first...

Pixar has a knack for coming up with good opening salvos, and Elio, the animation company’s latest movie, kicks off with a strong one. When we meet the 11-year-old kid, voiced by Yonas Kibreab, who gives this sci-fi dramedy its title, he’s nestled under a commissary table and in state of mourning. His parents have died. His aunt, Olga (Zoe Saldaña), has taken over the role of caretaker for the boy. She’s a career military woman who’s given up dreams of training to become an astronaut...

Plot: An eleven-year-old boy obsessed with aliens accidentally makes contact and is beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization consisting of different alien species from across the galaxy. Passing himself off as the ruler of Earth, he accidentally becomes embroiled in a conflict that could lead to an interplanetary war.

Review: As has become increasingly common with Pixar movies lately, Elio has the feel of a film that’s been reworked endlessly. Originally set to be directed by Adrian Molina, who helmed Coco, he was replaced at some point by directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi (Turning Red), to the point that the finished film bears little resemblance to the well-received teaser trailer that came out two years ago, which featured an introspective, relatable, and sweet-natured lead character in the titular Elio, as voiced by Yonas Kibreab.

Instead, Elio, as presented in the film, is another off-the-wall, overly comic kid character,...

Things could could get mighty interesting — and messy — at the June 20-22 box office as Pixar’s original animated movie Elio and Sony’s zombie pic 28 Years Later go up against holdover How to Train Your Dragon, which has quickly turned into an all-audience hit for DreamWorks Animation and parent company Universal.

Forecasts are all over the place, but one scenario shows the live-action Dragon staying atop the domestic box office chart with $40 million or more after opening to nearly $200 million globally last weekend. The film, fueled by stellar audience scores, is appealing to both families and hordes of Gen Zers who grew up on the animated franchise.

From Sony, Boyle’s zombie sequel 28 Years Later has all the ingredients of turning into a box office win, considering its relatively modest net production budget of $60 million before marketing. Sony is suggesting an opening in the $28 million range, while tracking...

On Wednesday June 18 2025, Racer broadcasts Hot Rod History Lessons!

Hot Rod History Lessons – Hollywood Movie Day Season 1 Episode 7 Episode Summary

The upcoming episode of “Hot Rod History Lessons,” titled “Hot Rod History Lessons – Hollywood Movie Day,” promises to be an exciting look into the connection between classic films and the world of hot rods. Airing on Racer, this episode features Professor Jay Deez III as he guides viewers through the fascinating history of how race cars and hot rods have been portrayed in Hollywood.

In this episode, Professor Deez dives into the early days of cinema, exploring iconic movies that showcased fast cars and thrilling races. He shares stories behind the scenes, revealing how filmmakers captured the adrenaline and excitement of speed on screen. This journey through film history highlights the cultural impact of hot rods, showing how they became symbols of freedom and rebellion.

Fans of cars and movies...

After a long delay to the silver screen, Disney'sEliois finally arriving in theaters, and in classic Pixar fashion, the reviews are good. Despite the film getting a behind-the-scenes overhaul, it seems to have beat the odds. The question is just how well Elio stacks up to the rest of Pixar's offerings, which include beloved classics like Finding Nemo, Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Inside Out. The film centers on a young boy named Elio, who aliens abduct as they mistake him for the ambassador of Earth, and he eventually becomes part of a plan to stop an intergalactic crisis while also trying to find his place in the universe.

As of this writing, Elio has landed on Rotten Tomatoes with an impressive 81% based on 42 reviews. MovieWeb's Julian Roman gave the movie a 4/5, saying, "Elio will have audiences of all ages looking towards the stars in a wonderful and richly imaginative sci-fi adventure.

Thirty years ago, Pixar rocketed into the popular imagination with Buzz Lightyear’s much-quoted motto, “To infinity and beyond!” Twenty-eight hit animated movies later, infinity comes for Elio Solís, an emotionally complicated 11-year-old orphan who feels so alone on Earth that he looks to the cosmos for company. The story of a kid who wants to be abducted by aliens — and what happens when he gets his wish — “Elio” is right at home in the Pixar catalog, but lacks those undeniable signs of intelligent life that set the studio’s best work apart.

Perhaps that’s asking too much, considering that “Elio” is a mature work of family entertainment, engineered to impart a lesson that any child who feels unloved, mistreated or out of place would surely benefit from hearing — namely, you are not alone. To make absolutely certain that no one misses that point, the script circles around to...

Watching Elio, the title character of Pixar’s latest film, it’s difficult not to draw comparisons to another child hero underneath the Disney umbrella. Introduced as a shy child reeling from an unspecified accident that took his parents’ life, the 11-year-old bursts out of his shell upon an encounter with an installation speculating of life beyond the stars and emerges as a hyperactive, alien-obsessed weirdo who runs around wearing a cape and metal colander helmet, speaks in a made-up language he calls “Elio-ese,” and drives his Air Force aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) crazy.

From the tragic backstory to the misfit behavior to the tense relationship with his guardian, Elio might as well be the male version of Lilo from Disney’s similarly sci-fi themed “Lilo & Stitch” — it doesn’t help that plenty of people went to go see the remake just last month.

The crucial difference? In the...