Elio and the decline of Pixar
The news that Pixar’s latest picture, the alien-contact family comedy Elio, has been an egregious flop at the American box office, grossing a mere $20.8 million on its opening weekend, has been greeted with both surprise and disappointment. Surprise, because Pixar has long been seen as the gold standard of contemporary animation, and disappointment, because its films are not supposed to flop. No fewer than 13 of their pictures are in the 50 highest-grossing animated films of all time roster, and nine have won Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, most recently 2020’s Soul. And if there had been rumors that the company was in trouble, these were apparently put to bed by the enormous, epochal success of Inside Out 2 last summer, which grossed $1.7 billion at the box office.
