I never heard of the movie, haven't seen any advertisements (YouTube, Radio, friends).

I mean on Disney+ right now Elio is 3rd on the carousel behind Frozen on Ice and Spidey and His Amazing Friends. Doesn't seem like they were promoting it that hard.

You would think a 250 million dollar investment would give them top billing right after its release.

If it wasn't obvious, using Box-Office numbers as a catch-all measure of film success hasn't been reasonable since we came out of Covid. Streaming counts are beginning to play a larger role. It's why so many large studios are willing to make Direct-To-Streaming Movies instead of releasing them in theaters- Sony's (well-rated) "Kpop Demon Hunters" is the most recent example to come to mind.

Not super great of them to release an original movie so close to Lilo and Stitch, which is still in theaters and just crossed $900M world-wide. And of course, How to Train Your Dragon, as mentioned in the article.

Saw it this weekend, it's a solid Pixar movie. But I only learned about it because I was looking to go see a movie and Elio was the most original movie playing at the local theater; I'd heard nothing about it.

I have heard more about the two live-action remakes (Lilo and Stitch/How to Train Your Dragon) and the sequel (28 years later) that are currently showing.