Adrian Molina No Longer Directing Pixar’s ‘Elio,’ Madeline Sharafian And Domee Shi Take Over

At the D23 Expo that wrapped up yesterday, Pixar announced that its upcoming original title Elio has added two more directors – Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi – in addition to the originally-announced director Adrian Molina.

While Molina is still being credited as a director, this is a Brenda Chapman/Brave-type of situation where the credit will be in name only. Pixar’s chief creative officer Pete Docter confirmed to The Wrap that Molina was no longer involved with the film and has been “taken on to a priority project that we’re not ready to talk about yet.”

Although the news of Molina’s departure had not been previously announced until D23, Cartoon Brew understands that Molina, who had his big break as a writer and co-director on Coco, stepped off as director of Elio back in January of this year.

The film follows Elio, a space fanatic with an active imagination, who gets beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization that mistakes him for Earth’s leader. Elio was originally intended to release on March 1 of this year, but the project has now been pushed back to June 13, 2025. The studio’s official reason for the delay is the writers’ and actors’ strikes. (America Ferrera, who was originally cast as Elio’s aunt, has also been replaced by Zoe Saldaña “due to scheduling conflicts.”)

The reasons for Molina’s departure from the project remain unclear. In the new interview with The Wrap, the closest thing to a reason that Docter provided was that the main character of Elio was difficult to crack. “I think [Sharafian and Shi] made some major discoveries on him that really helped the audience to connect and to move forward with the character into the second act, which is, course, where all the meat happens,” he said.

Some knowledgeable observers, however, have pointed to another recent interview with Docter, and suggested that Docter gave a more clear reason for Molina’s departure in that discussion, though he never directly mentioned the director or film by name. The specific part of that interview which may be relevant to the situation is the following comment from Docter:

But what I’ve found is sometimes, if you are telling a personal story, you’ll be like, “Oh, no, that’s not the way the story goes. Because my story is this.” But we’re not telling my story; we’re telling a story that needs to work for a fictional character that we’re creating. So there’s sometimes a reluctance to let go or let the movie shape itself the way it needs to.

Elio is now being overseen by Sharafian and Shi, who are both working in an equal capacity as directors, a departure for Pixar whose film have always had a single director, with additional individuals in co-directing roles.

Sharafian, who has been a story artist at Pixar since the 2017 feature Coco, directed the studio’s Oscar-nominated Sparkshort Burrow. Shi, a thirteen-year veteran of Pixar, not only directed the Oscar-winning short Bao and the feature film Turning Red, but has also been promoted to vp of creative, where she helps guide the creative direction for Pixar’s upcoming slate of films.