Is New Pixar Movie ‘Elemental’ Available to Stream Now? When Will It Be Available on Disney+?
Just in time for summer, Disney and Pixar are back in their element with their latest animated release! After debuting at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the original animated picture “Elemental” blows into theaters in the U.S. on Friday, June 16.
Directed by Peter Sohn, “Elemental” brings audiences to Element City, where a host of elements — air, earth, water, and fire — live and work. Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie lead the voice cast as Ember Lumen and Wade Ripple, respectively. The fiery and quick-witted Ember has trouble controlling her explosive temper and will be extinguished if she is touched by water.
This becomes a point of contention after one day when her rage causes a water pipe in her family’s convenience store to break, summoning Wade, a fun and sappy water element health inspector who threatens to shut down the shop. Ember must venture outside of her comfort zone (both metaphorical and literally) to fuel both her family’s legacy and her blossoming relationship with Wade.
The voice cast also includes Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O’Hara, Mason Wertheimer, Joe Pera, Matt Yang King, Clara Lin Ding, and more.
While early reviews have been largely mixed with a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience score upon release is at 91% on the aggregate. The consensus among all moviegoers, though, as it is with all Disney and Pixar movies, is the film’s “dazzling” visuals.
Watch a Trailer for “Elemental”:
“Elemental” is, at least for now, exclusively available in theaters, but if you’d rather not brave the elements to see the movie in theaters, you can wait for the release on Disney+. However, you won’t be able to circle an exact date on the calendar quite yet.
Disney animated releases typically have a theatrical window between 45 and 90 days with exceptions for its most anticipated films. The most recent animated theatrical release, 2022’s “Lightyear,” flew into theaters on June 17, nearly a year to the day of “Elemental’s release, and made it to the streaming platform on Aug. 3, 48 days after it debuted in cinemas. Its previous efforts, including “Turning Red” and “Luca” were both released direct-to-streaming, but the last pre-pandemic release, 2019’s “Toy Story 4,” remained in theaters for 101 days before its digital availability.
Disney and Pixar will have to weigh the film’s budget, mixed reviews, and further planned domestic and international release schedules before “Elemental” makes it onto Disney+, but Disney has also already said that it plans to use longer theatrical release windows for its upcoming animated features, including “Elemental,” to get families back into the theaters, so if you’re planning on waiting for the streaming release, you will likely have to wait until at least mid-September.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”