Pete Docter Says Pixar Cut LGBTQ Storyline From ‘Elio’ Because ‘We’re Making a Movie, Not Hundreds of Millions of Dollars of Therapy’

Pete Docter, chief creative officer at Pixar and director of “Monsters Inc.,” “Up” and “Inside Out,” recently told the Wall Street Journal why the studio decided to completely overhaul 2025’s “Elio” and cut out the film’s LGBTQ storyline.

via: EW

The animated film's major creative overhaul included removing its LGBTQ+ themes because the Disney-owned studio did not want it to cover topics that kids had yet to discuss with their parents.

"We're making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy," Docter said in a new interview with the The Wall Street Journal.

The film, which follows a lonely boy who is beamed into outer space after being mistaken as the leader of Earth, had originally locked in director Adrian Molina, who based the story off his own childhood. But following a 2023 test screening, where viewers said they liked the movie but not enough to see it in theaters, the studio made big changes to it.

Molina exited the project, and Domee Shi (Turning Red) and Madeline Sharafian (Burrow) became the film's directors. All allusions to Elio's sexuality were cut, including a pink bicycle he owned and a scene in which he imagined raising a child with his male crush, a source told the Journal.

Elio ultimately opened to record-low numbers for Pixar, debuting to just $20.8 million domestically and $14 million overseas. In the end, the film earned $150 million worldwide — an impressive yield if not for the fact that it cost $150 million to produce, in addition to global marketing fees. Per the Journal, Disney lost more than $100 million making the movie.

Pixar creatives and staffers have fought an uphill battle when it comes to spotlighting LGBTQ+ characters and queer themes in its projects. While some Disney films have featured brief references to LGBTQ+ characters, they are usually minor or background roles. So far, the only LGBTQ-focused work released from Pixar is the short film Out, which premiered on the Disney+ streaming platform.

In December 2024, Entertainment Weekly learned that Pixar had dropped a storyline that would have featured a transgender character as part of the studio's first-ever long-form TV series, Win or Lose. The character remained in the show, but the plot point revolving around her gender was excised from the script, a change that included significantly cutting down her dialogue.

At the time, a spokesperson for Disney said in a statement provided to EW, "When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline."

One month prior, reports emerged that the company had shelved an episode of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur that featured a trans girl participating in school sports. Derrick Malik Johnson, a storyboard artist who worked on the series, connected the decision to the re-election of Republican candidate Donald Trump, writing in a now-deleted social media post, "One of the projects (episode) I worked on is getting shelved because of which party that won the recent election? It breaks my heart knowing this impactful and amazing [episode] is now about to be considered a lost media episode."

Before that, in 2022, Pixar employees banded together to speak out against Disney's actions surrounding Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, also expressing disappointment in the company's approach to LGBTQ+ storylines. 

"We at Pixar have personally witnessed beautiful stories, full of diverse characters, come back from Disney corporate reviews shaved down to crumbs of what they once were," read a letter signed by "Leadership from the LGBTQIA+ Employees of Pixar & Their Allies."

The letter continued, "Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney's behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar. Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it."

Bob Chapek, Disney's CEO at the time, penned a response, apologizing to the company's LGBTQ+ employees and vowing to cease all political donations in the state of Florida. This was followed by the restoration of a same-sex kiss previously cut from the 2022 Pixar release Lightyear.