DVDizzy Forum

The Art of Elemental really does make me a bit upset knowing how easy they would've made the character designs so 2D looking while being 3D..

Disney's Divinity wrote: ↑Fri May 19, 2023 3:40 pm If this one flops, it mostly has to do with them going back to the safe buddy roadtrip formula well. They need to keep doing new things like Turning Red and Luca. Unfortunately, Elio, while I personally think it looks good unlike this (and it looks much better than Strange World did going in, tbh), worries me simply because its genre is sci-fi, and we already know that one generally does not turn out well for animated fare at the box office. You can count the number of successful animated sci-fi films on one hand.

IDK, maybe I should think it's for the best. If WDAS does well with Wish and Frozen III while Elemental and Elio both flop, then that may make it that more possible PIXAR animators simply get folded into WDAS. WDAS has the longer legacy and with Disney already having its attention divided with Marvel and Star Wars, they may see it as simpler if there's only one animation studio.

You forget… Pixar made a sci-fi film that was a success, critically and financially, and that was Wall-E.

Good point. So there is hope for Elio. Just speaking for myself, Lightyear was hard for me to muster a great deal of interest in from the moment it was announced despite being a fan of Toy Story. Whereas so far I like everything I've heard about and seen of Elio--the aesthetic more in vein of TR and Luca, the so far solo protagonist, America Ferrera's involvement, etc.

deepwaters wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 4:42 pm Yeah that was directed at everyone who thought that.

Oh, okay, my bad. Welcome to the forums, by the way!

deepwaters wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 7:32 pm It really hurts seeing people are so harsh towards not only the movie but to the director for making it personal to him. It sucks. I really hope Elemental can have an impact despite it’s current state right now on social media.

I know. I really liked The Good Dinosaur, so I really hope this movie does well.

Disney's Divinity wrote: ↑Sun May 21, 2023 1:01 am Just speaking for myself, Lightyear was hard for me to muster a great deal of interest in from the moment it was announced despite being a fan of Toy Story.

I felt the exact same way. I actually didn't even see Lightyear because it pretty much had nothing to do with Toy Story; it was just another movie that happened to have the name Buzz Lightyear in it.

But back to Elemental. As time goes on, I’m starting to see less and less reasons to think it’s going to be successful. What’s worse is that Peter Sohn really likes to push technical limits by expanding the budget of his films for more realism. Especially with TGD, all those landscapes are so DEADLY, and I can’t imagine how many times the people at Pixar banged their heads on their keyboards for extended periods of time. The problem is, Elemental had such a big budget and it’s technically incredible, but most people won’t care about that; they’ll only care about the story, and I don’t think the story is a big enough match for the budget to produce enough money to gain any profits.

Given Sohn’s track record, I’m sad to think that Elemental’s not going to end well. But surprises happen, don’t they? … don’t they?? [sigh] It's just not the early 2000s for Pixar anymore...

Got video of a sneak peek of Elemental during Part 1 of the season finale of NBC'S The Voice: https://twitter.com/AbandonedLizard/sta ... 78529?s=20.

This comes a day after we saw another sneak peek during the season finale of American Idol on ABC.

Let's hope we get more marketing in the remaining few weeks to come.

And I think Elemental will be a sleeper hit, despite Woodrow Pride thinking otherwise, if reviews from Cannes this weekend are in its favor.

D23ExpoVisitor25 wrote: ↑Mon May 22, 2023 7:55 pm Got video of a sneak peek of Elemental during Part 1 of the season finale of NBC'S The Voice: https://twitter.com/AbandonedLizard/sta ... 78529?s=20.

Thanks for posting! The American Idol sneak peek and some TV spots can be seen in this article. I don't think these posters have been posted either:


Source: https://twitter.com/pixarelemental/stat ... 0784704513


Source: https://twitter.com/RealD3D/status/1658457763838857217

D23ExpoVisitor25 wrote: ↑Mon May 22, 2023 7:55 pm And I think Elemental will be a sleeper hit, despite Woodrow Pride thinking otherwise, if reviews from Cannes this weekend are in its favor.

It'll be interesting to see what the reviews are like. I hope they're good.

New TV spot with more footage (I'm pretty sure this one hasn't been posted yet): https://youtu.be/4-U3KGb5KQA

New clip:
https://youtu.be/dyVDYAm_j68

That was really beautiful!!!

The first round of box office projections for Disney/Pixar’s “Elemental” are not looking good, as the original title about a city full of fire, water, plant and air beings is tracking for one of the worst opening weekends in Pixar history. Currently, “Elemental” is projected for an opening weekend of around $40 million. In the near-30-year history of Pixar feature films, in which 23 have been released theatrically, only two have earned three-day openings of less than $40 million. The first was “The Good Dinosaur” — also from “Elemental” director Peter Sohn — which opened to $35 million over three days on Thanksgiving weekend 2015. The second film was “Onward,” which opened to $39 million in March 2020 on the weekend just before the pandemic shut down theaters for a year.

Source: https://www.thewrap.com/elemental-pixar ... s-opening/

Sotiris wrote: ↑Sat May 27, 2023 4:02 am

The first round of box office projections for Disney/Pixar’s “Elemental” are not looking good, as the original title about a city full of fire, water, plant and air beings is tracking for one of the worst opening weekends in Pixar history. Currently, “Elemental” is projected for an opening weekend of around $40 million. In the near-30-year history of Pixar feature films, in which 23 have been released theatrically, only two have earned three-day openings of less than $40 million. The first was “The Good Dinosaur” — also from “Elemental” director Peter Sohn — which opened to $35 million over three days on Thanksgiving weekend 2015. The second film was “Onward,” which opened to $39 million in March 2020 on the weekend just before the pandemic shut down theaters for a year.

Source: https://www.thewrap.com/elemental-pixar ... s-opening/

They can skyrocket if reviews out of Cannes are strong, which given Pixar's 3 for 3 track record at Cannes (Up, Inside Out, and Soul) is likely to be the case.

The film is being screened at Cannes right now:

I enjoy watching Disney animation in French, Italian and Spanish.

I saw Mulan 1998 in Italian when I was in Naples for a business meeting.

First Elemental Reviews Are Mixed
https://screenrant.com/elemental-movie- ... s-reviews/

‘Elemental’ Review: New Pixar Animation Is Visually Splendid, But Swamped In Syrupy Sentiment – Cannes Film Festival

What has fallen flat at Pixar? This is the innovative animation studio that pushed all before it in the first decade of this millennium, that invented a way of turning the plastic finish of digital animation to its advantage in the towering Toy Story, that was prepared to start a film with a 20-minute scene with no dialogue in Wall-E – and revealed that kids didn’t care – and that would make an adventure film with a hero aged 78 years young in UP!. Kids didn’t care about that either, as it turned out, because Carl Fredricksen was a grumpy-gramps adventurer who also didn’t care what others thought of him. Pixar always had something new up its collective artistic sleeve. And yet here they are, coming out with a film as dull-witted and syrupy as Elemental.

https://deadline.com/2023/05/elemental- ... 235381852/

If this movie flops, as is becoming increasingly more likely, does Pete Docter survive? It’s not his fault that Chapek sacrificed Pixar movies to feed the streaming monster so now audiences say “I’ll wait to see it on Disney+.” But on the other hand, why would anyone give the director of “The Good Dinosaur” another swing at helming a film? I am not well versed in the inside politics at Pixar, I see Sohn is a member of Pixar’s Senior Team but… c’mon, “The Good Dinosaur”???

Some more positive reviews:
Social Roundup: Pixar’s “Elemental” Gets Mostly Positive First Reactions from Fans and Critics
https://www.laughingplace.com/w/news/20 ... d-critics/

UmbrellaFish wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 5:27 am why would anyone give the director of “The Good Dinosaur” another swing at helming a film? I am not well versed in the inside politics at Pixar, I see Sohn is a member of Pixar’s Senior Team but… c’mon, “The Good Dinosaur”???

He inherited TGD, just like Brad Bird inherited Ratatouille. I'm biased, because TGD is one of my most favorites, but Sohn was in charge of totally retooling TGD... I guess if Elemental has similar issues to TGD then maybe there will be an issue in terms of Sohn's creditability as a director, but my fingers are toes are crossed.

Ahh, that is good to know.

UmbrellaFish wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 5:27 amIf this movie flops, as is becoming increasingly more likely, does Pete Docter survive? It’s not his fault that Chapek sacrificed Pixar movies to feed the streaming monster so now audiences say “I’ll wait to see it on Disney+.”

I feel that's just an excuse. Disney released 3 Pixar films straight to Disney+ amid the pandemic. Universal released 5 DreamWorks/Illumination films to VOD (either with a simultaneous theatrical release or less than a month after it) amid the pandemic. If this practice made audiences used to catching animated fare straight on streaming or VOD, then why are Universal films still so successful at the box office?

I can't believe that Disney, in their hubris, decided to screen both Indiana Jones and Elemental at Cannes only to be crushed by critics. So humiliating.

I don't know what's gotten wrong but I think there might be some echo chamber at all the studios under Disney where people tell each other what they want to hear rather than give the hard and honest truth in order to make the best possible movies. It's not surprising though, considering we live in the age of oversensitivity.