'Elemental' Features Disney's First Openly Nonbinary Character... but it Bombed at the Box Office

The Pixar film "Elemental" offers cause for rejoicing as the first Disney movie to feature an openly nonbinary character. Representation aside, though, the movie is a box-office bomb, UK newspaper the Daily Mail reported.

The movie follows the star-crossed love between two classical elements, one water, the other fire. The fire character, Ember, is the daughter of immigrants to Element City. When Ember meets Wade, the two of them are tasked with tracking down the reason for a series of floods. A romantic spark between them threatens to ignite trouble due to Ember's parents being prejudiced against water elementals – despite facing prejudice themselves because they are immigrants and fire elementals.

Neither of the leads is the film's nonbinary character; as the Daily Mail noted, it's "Lake, who is Wade's younger sibling" who uses they/them pronouns. Lake is voiced by "Ava Hauser, who is also non-binary," the account said.

The newspaper cited Reuters, which reported that "Elemental" "took in roughly $30 million at U.S. and Canadian box offices over the weekend, the second-lowest debut in the history of the acclaimed studio behind the 'Toy Story' franchise, 'Finding Nemo' and other classics."

Other reports put the weekend box office at $49.3 million against a budget of $200 million.

In a fairly typical review for the movie, Deadline panned "Elemental" – but its critique had nothing to do with any of the characters' gender identities. Rather, Deadline called the movie "syrupy," suggested it was dull, and wondered, "What has fallen flat at Pixar?"

The disappointing box office numbers come after Disney's "Strange World" – the first Disney film to feature an openly gay character (though again, not one of the leads) – similarly flopped, earning only $73.6 million against a budget estimated to be between $135 million and $200 million. Critical reviews did not center on the gay character, but rather on the writing, with IndieWire calling the plot "needlessly complicated" and the dialogue "unfunny."

A film's initial box office is not always a reliable indicator of its eventual success, however. Films now regarded as classics such as John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1981), "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994), and "Fight Club" (1999) were regarded as flops upon release, but have persisted in the culture and come to be regarded as classics of their genres.