Elemental: Pixar director's joy at return to big screens with big-hearted love story

After its last two releases went straight to streaming, Pete Docter feels at home watching the studio's new film in cinemas

Earth, wind and firing again – Pixar director Pete Docter is back in his element. AFP

Pixar’s Pete Docter is impersonating a giant wave, his arms wobbling in the air. You might think he’s conveying the joys of Wade Ripple, the watery character who features in the American animation company's latest feature Elemental. In fact, the company’s chief creative officer is demonstrating visually – he is an animator by trade, after all – the state of the film industry right now.

“I think we’re still in a period of like ... somebody dropped a giant boulder in the middle of the pool and everything’s gone like this," he says, showing off that wave, when we meet in Cannes’s Carlton Hotel. “It’s still kind of calming down.” Of course, he’s referring to the past three years, when Covid-19 caused global shutdowns of movie theatres and streaming companies stepped up their game.

For Pixar, the famed Disney-owned brand behind modern classics Toy Story, Cars and 2015’s Docter-directed Inside Out, it was a particularly testing time. Films like Luca and Soul, another Docter-made delight and the third of his films to bring him an Oscar, went to Disney+, the studio’s emerging streaming service, largely bypassing cinemas.

“First of all, we were pretty fortunate to have Disney+,” says Docter, carefully. “Otherwise, those films would have been up there on the shelf and nobody would see them at all. So, Soul, Luca ... there was kind of no alternative at that point.

"I would be lying if I said we were totally happy for everybody to see our movies on streaming [platforms], because we make them for the big screen. We have all this detail, nuance and texture, that don’t show up on your screen – much less than your iPhone.”

Certainly, Elemental is a film that cries out for big-screen projection. Written and directed by Peter Sohn (The Good Dinosaur), it’s set in a richly designed fantasy world called Element City, where characters made of fire, water, earth and air co-exist. The lead is Ember, a "fire" person who lives with her parents on the outskirts of the city. Then one day she meets the watery Wade and sparks fly.

“We’d never done a love story before,” says Docter, credited as executive producer on the film. “And there is like some old animation history that says love stories can’t really be done very well in animation, which is strange because there’s been a lot of them made.

"But Woolie Reitherman who directed a lot of the Disney films [including One Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Jungle Book] said that there was not enough control in animation to be able to do them effectively.”

More seriously, the film touches on isolation and racism, experiences many immigrants experience when entering new countries. “That was a delicate one that we wanted to make sure was included, but still be palatable and not too heavy-handed," he says.

"People go to the movies to escape the world. But that’s impossible because you also want to see enough of your own life reflected in the movie so that it makes sense, that it speaks to you. I kind of believe it’s not possible to tell a really rooted deep story without bringing up some difficult stuff.”

Needless to say, Docter’s delighted that Elemental will be in theatres – not least because there’s a sense the company need a hit. As part of wider Disney-instigated cuts, Pixar recently announced 75 staff were being let go and there will surely be some anxious checking of box office receipts when Elemental is rolled out globally this week.

The last mega-hit the company enjoyed was 2019’s Toy Story 4 ($1.073 billion worldwide) before the pandemic.

Indeed, whisper it quietly, but Pixar is no longer Hollywood’s animation king. Intriguingly, Elemental hits cinemas shortly after Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which is co-directed by Kemp Powers, who previously worked with Docter on Soul.

“They have an advantage because it’s a sequel, obviously,” says Docter. “So it’s something that people are familiar with. They’ve grown to love the first [movie]. So that’s a challenge with this film.”

Currently, another rival animation firm Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros Movie is the box office champ of 2023 ($1.3 billion and counting). “That one I haven’t seen but, typically, I’m very curious just to see what’s intriguing to people, what’s working,” says Docter.

Yet both that and Across the Spider-Verse are based on recognisable IP, something Pixar shies away from.

“I like to think people are still interested in seeing original stuff,” he argues.

Given that Disney owns Marvel and Pixar, could he see Pixar collaborating and forging a Marvel-related animation?

“I wouldn’t say never," he says. "But right now, I mean, Kevin [Feige, Marvel’s head] and their group have done a couple of animated things just on their own. And I think the complexity of their world is such it will take us a long time to catch up in terms of story.”

The affable Docter, 54, has been at Pixar since 1990, since former head of the company John Lassater scooped him up from California Institute of the Arts. A true artist, he couldn’t be less executive-like if he tried. But after serving as vice president of creativity, he became Pixar’s chief creative officer in 2018, following Lasseter’s departure after allegations concerning sexual misconduct surfaced.

“Well, I mean, John ... it’s almost impossible to overstate the effect that John had, both creatively, personally, in the business, and it’s definitely a huge shake-up that he’s not there,” says Docter. “I won’t really get into our personal discussion at this point. But he’s an incredible filmmaker.”

In 2019, Lasseter was hired by Skydance Animation, which last year produced its first feature Luck. “I can’t wait to see what they do next,” Docter adds.

Right now, Docter is overseeing the production of Inside Out 2, due next year, directed by Kelsey Mann.

But will he direct again? “Oh, I hope so,” he says. “Like I say, somebody dropped a giant rock in the middle and things are ...” There goes that wave again.

“I mean, my bosses at Disney could say: ‘No, no, no!’ There’s so much influx right now that it’s really hard to say and I think my primary responsibility is to the studio – to make sure that more people can continue to make movies.”

Elemental will be released in UAE cinemas on Thursday