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. Sometimes you just hit the right little combinations of things.”
Revealing that it takes Pixar about 5 years to release a film, from concept to finished product, Docter told attendees that the studio has the difficult task of trying to predict what will be popular half a decade from now, an unpredictable task given how quickly trends and cultural interests shift.
“We have to find out what people want before they know it,” Docter stated. “Because if we just gave them more of what they know, we’d be making Toy Story 27.”
Following 2019’s Toy Story 4, Pixar shifted its focus to a string of original films, including Onward, Soul, Luca, and Turning Red. However, due to the pandemic, most of these movies either saw shortened theatrical windows or were released directly to Disney+, limiting their box office potential and broader cultural impact.
Elemental, released in 2023, marked Pixar’s first major post-COVID theatrical release. While it stumbled out of the gate, the film gradually gained traction and eventually inched toward profitability. Now, Pixar is undoubtedly hoping that its upcoming film Elio follows a similar late-blooming success story.
After Elio, Pixar will debut Hoppers, another original story, followed later in the summer by the highly anticipated sequel Toy Story 5. In 2026, the studio plans to release Gatto, a fresh concept, before returning to familiar territory with Incredibles 3 and Coco 2.
If Pixar hopes to avoid becoming a studio defined solely by sequels, it’s essential for Elio, Hoppers, or Gatto to break through and truly resonate with audiences worldwide.