Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Lisa Laman | Film | June 23, 2025
Some will say the Pixar Animation Studios empire died the weekend Elio scored the lowest domestic opening ever for a Pixar Animation Studios release (even before adjusting for inflation). Others will declare the dismal bow for Elemental two years earlier as the moment the bloom was off the Pixar rose. Still others are bound to proclaim that fateful day in October 2020 when Disney announced Soul was going straight to Disney+ was when Pixar was plopped six feet below ground.
Elio’s disastrous box office numbers make it more apparent than ever that the Pixar name no longer draws a crowd like it used to. However, the Pixar empire crumbled long before COVID and Elio were on people’s radar. This isn’t a matter of “go woke go broke” (hint: art being “woke” is never an issue) or even audiences rejecting all original animated movies in the 2020s. Long-simmering problems for Pixar have come home to roost in recent years and ensured the American animation crown has been bestowed on other motion pictures.
Live By the Sequels, Die by the Sequels
One of WALL-E’s first TV spots back in 2008 started with a 12-second montage of Pixar’s movies up to that point. Against a backdrop of deep space, a year (1995, 1998, 2001, etc.) would appear on-screen, followed by a snippet of iconic footage from movies like Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and others. It was a memorably theatrical way to intertwine a risky new idea for a summer blockbuster (a vocally limited lesbian robot falls in love!) with Pixar’s esteemed past. Pixar Animation Studios was known as the studio that took risks yet paid off audiences handsomely for taking chances on new, original concepts.
On the Toy Story: Midway Mania episode of Podcast: The Ride, guest Griffin Newman astutely observed that one of Pixar’s hottest originality streaks came about because Pixar was disconnected from Disney. Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up were all greenlit back when it was uncertain whether or not Disney and Pixar would continue their relationship. Without the Mouse House around, Pixar embraced truly audacious animated films. Unsurprisingly, the first two motion pictures made after Disney bought Pixar for billions in January 2006 were Toy Story 3 and Cars 2.
This is where Pixar’s death truly began. Previously, the Pixar name guided audiences into theaters to check out original ideas that stood out in summer moviegoing seasons full of sequels. It was impossible to maintain that reputation when Pixar only delivered three original films in the eight years between Brave and Onward. In the 2010s, the Pixar moniker was just the logo preceding movies, playing on Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Toy Story nostalgia. Disney and Pixar got immense levels of box office glory from these excursions, but they also inflicted a long-term problem for original Pixar titles.
WALL-E, Up, and The Incredibles could lean on the Pixar legacy in the 2000s to attract audiences. By 2019, though, an entire generation of moviegoers had grown up with no strong association with Pixar. Their older siblings or even parents got all nostalgic and happy seeing Toy Story 4 and Incredibles 2 trailers. However, the Pixar name was no longer a seal of quality for today’s youths as it was for kids.
Elio’s disastrous box office numbers make it more apparent than ever that the Pixar name no longer draws a crowd like it used to. However, the Pixar empire crumbled long before COVID and Elio were on people’s radar. This isn’t a matter of “go woke go broke” (hint: art being “woke” is never an issue) or even audiences rejecting all original animated movies in the 2020s. Long-simmering problems for Pixar have come home to roost in recent years and ensured the American animation crown has been bestowed on other motion pictures.
Pixar Films Struggle to Speak to Modern Youngsters
Pixar’s initial wave of ten movies provided a perfect respite from typical ’90s American animated movies. Instead of sweeping musical numbers in ancient locations, the likes of Toy Story and Finding Nemo were buddy comedies set distinctly in the modern world. Pixar’s inaugural works offered moviegoers something different. Now, in the 2020s, Pixar has become the old stalwart, surpassed by the “kids these days.”
2025’s Elio begins immediately with a slow scene of the titular lead cowering beneath a restaurant booth while his aunt (and newly minted guardian) struggles to connect with him. It’s already a slower-paced kick-off compared to past Pixar films like Up, Inside Out, and The Incredibles. However, it’s also comically out of step with the visual and storytelling tendencies of the most popular youth-skewing animation movies of the modern world. Titles like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and The Wild Robot are faster-paced enterprises with visuals rooted firmly in a post-Spider-Verse world. These titles start with a bang, immediately grabbing your attention, even when they’re just chronicling intimate matters like familial strife or a robot walking around on an island.
These acclaimed productions mix deeply effective pathos with zanier and even impressionistic visual impulses. Within these titles, you get Gwen Stacy poignantly “coming out” to her father while also cackling over jokes about “Peter Parked-car”. They blend disparate visual influences (and even hand-drawn and CG-animated elements) to create compellingly fragmented yet beautiful worlds belonging exclusively to the youth of today. Meanwhile, Pixar keeps filtering all its movies through the same animation style, relying on juxtaposing realistic backgrounds with stylized characters (and incessant shallow depth of field). The Good Dinosaur and Elio, though separated by ten years, adhere to the same imagery impulses. That’s not a good way to keep yourself relevant.
A modern family-friendly animated movie doesn’t need to look like a Spider-Verse clone to be “good” or successful. Those Minion movies or animated Disney hits like Moana 2 and Inside Out 2 certainly didn’t need to do that to be moneymakers. However, original Pixar titles may struggle to resonate with kids and families today because they’re a bit out of step with the demands of modern kids. Elio, Elemental, and Lightyear’s respective promotional campaigns made them look like overly serious films belonging to past generations. Pixar has gotten great at exploiting the nostalgia of older audiences. They’re less skilled, though, at delivering the surprising visuals and more intricate tones uber-relevant to younger folks.
Yes, Disney+ Also Killed the Pixar Star
Compounding all those problems is the Disney+ issue. Onward and The Good Dinosaur already showed that modern Pixar originals were going to struggle at the box office. However, box office juggernauts Coco and Inside Out demonstrated in the same decade that such titles were far from a lost cause. Perhaps Soul, Luca, and Turning Red could’ve followed in the footsteps of the latter duo. We’ll never know since Disney sent them to Disney+. Immediately, the Pixar brand name was tarnished, and audiences were conditioned to expect costly Pixar originals in their living rooms.
The tragedy here was that one member of this trio could’ve totally proven Pixar could still produce relevant animated features. Domee Shi’s excellent Turning Red featured dazzlingly heightened animation, a more propulsive tone, and zanier jokes (including the first mention of “pole-dancing” in the Pixar canon) totally in tune with an animated cinema landscape molded by Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Turning Red making a splash on the big screen could’ve done so much for original Pixar animation. Alas, Disney prioritized the infinitely weaker Lightyear for theatrical release, further diluting the label’s brand name.
Turning Red, Elio’s positive audience responses, and Inside Out 2 becoming the biggest non-Ne Zha 2 animated movie ever worldwide reaffirm Pixar’s nuanced future. It’s not like the house Luxo Jr. and the Knick Knack snowman built will never again produce art that inspires reactions from people. It’s even likely one of Pixar’s upcoming original titles like Hoppers or Gatto becomes a moneymaker. However, the days of Pixar Animation Studios being a brand name audiences trust are gone. The same studio that produced Cars 3 eight years ago was not the same risky, critically foolproof entity from 2008. A decade of easy franchise money, not to mention Pixar visual stagnation and streaming’s carnage, sealed Pixar’s fate. Poor Elio just got noticeably caught in the tractor beam of these factors that crumbled the once mighty Pixar empire.
