Pixar’s Elio Has a New Trailer That Looks Like a Totally Different Movie

Pixar films tend to go through a lot of changes during production but it’s rare we get to see those changes as publicly as we have with Elio. Originally announced as a spring 2024 release, Elio shifted release dates multiple times and it’ll now hit theaters June 20. A third trailer was just released and, compared to the others, it feels like a completely new and different movie.

When we first heard about Elio way back in 2022, it was supposed to be about a boy who gets taken into space and mistaken as the sole representative of Earth. That, according to the press release, is still part of the movie—but this trailer doesn’t mention it. Instead, it focuses on that same boy, Elio (Yonas Kibreab) making his first real friend, an alien named Glordon (Remy Edgerly), a character that was barely seen in previous trailers. Let’s start with the new one.

Now clearly that looks pretty fun. A character-driven story of friendship set in space. You can already imagine all the hijinks and problems this is going to create for both characters. Plus, there’s the bigger threat and we can assume Elio is still going to save Earth somehow. It could be great.

But let’s go back. Here’s the first trailer for Elio. The Glordon character isn’t in it at all and his father Grigon (Brad Garrett), who is clearly the bad guy in the new trailer, is referred to as an “Ambassador,” not “Lord.” It sure seems like he was previously either a good guy or served a different purpose. Here’s the first trailer.

Now, to be fair, that’s a very early teaser trailer. The movie could still be about something else. We don’t know Grigon doesn’t flip. We don’t know if Glordon is in it. It’s just not in the teaser. However, in Elio’s case, we actually got another trailer too. This is also a teaser trailer but it’s from months later and it very clearly shows something new taking shape. In retrospect, it’s basically a bridge between the two. Here’s trailer two.

In this clip, you can see the movie from the latest trailer taking shape. The scene of Elio meeting the other alien ambassadors is different but still present. There’s the one single shot of him with Glordon, so that’s at least in there, but potentially not the focus. And Grigon now has a more ominous look about him.

So what happened here? We don’t know for sure. Presumably earlier versions of Elio weren’t working as well as the studio wanted and Pixar made changes to improve it. That usually happens behind the scenes though so it’s fun to see a hint of it in the marketing. But, again, this is Pixar. This happens. Sometimes for the better (like with Ratatouille) sometimes not (like Brave) but everything is in service of the story and the movie. We’ll see if it was worth it this summer.

Elio features the voices of Yonas Kibreab, Remy Edgerly, Zoe Saldaña, Brad Garrett, Jameela Jamil, and Shirley Henderson. It was directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, and Adrian Molina, and opens June 20.

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