New Pixar Movie Casts Zoe Saldaña

Zoe Saldaña has joined the cast of Elio.

Elio is a new animated Pixar movie that is scheduled to be released in 2025. Announced on Friday, August 9, 2024, at D23, Saldaña has now joined the cast of the movie and will voice Elio’s Aunt Olga.

“I felt a real connection to the character and wanted to see a representation of how a real family works on screen. The relationship you and I share in the movie felt authentic,” Saldaña said a D23, via Variety.

Saldaña is known for playing Gamora in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Neytiri in James Cameron’s Avatar films, and Nyota Uhura in the recent Star Trek movies. Her filmography also includes 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2010’s The Losers, 2013’s Out of the Furnace, 2019’s Missing Link, and more.

What is Pixar’s Elio movie about?

“The original feature film introduces Elio, an underdog with an active imagination who finds himself inadvertently beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization with representatives from galaxies far and wide. Mistakenly identified as Earth’s ambassador to the rest of the universe, and completely unprepared for that kind of pressure, Elio must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, survive a series of formidable trials and somehow discover who he is truly meant to be,” the plot description reads.

Elio is directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, and Adrian Molina. Mary Alice Drumm produces the film.

The voice cast also includes Yonas Kibreab as Elio, America Ferrera as Elio’s mother Olga, Jameela Jamil as Ambassador Questa, and Brad Garrett as Ambassador Grigon.

Elio was originally supposed to be released in United States theaters on March 1, 2024; however, it was delayed in October 2023 during the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike. 

The movie will now open in the United States on June 13, 2025.