Overview

• Elio centers on an 11-year-old boy who feels like an outsider on Earth and dreams of alien abduction until he is transported to a vast cosmic realm.
• Lighting art director Ernesto Nemesio and other Pixar staff infused their own experiences of not fitting in to shape Elio’s emotional journey.
• Co-director Madeline Sharafian confirmed that Elio’s name and even its sock and shoe colors are deliberate nods to Spielberg’s E.T.
• Visual effects teams designed a diverse cast of aliens, including the worm-like Glordon who becomes Elio’s unlikely companion against the universe-threatening Lord Grigon.
• Disney moved the film’s premiere by one week to June 20 to avoid direct box-office competition with the live-action How to Train Your Dragon remake.