The reality is that this movie will no doubt have some focus on Elmo and Abby. If they're smart, they'll realize the mistakes made with EIG basically being a Toy commercial for Elmo stuff.
Elmo's a great character when he's paired up with the right characters. Zoe can get a rise out of Elmo by annoying him with Rocko, but deep down, they're close friends. Grover is the clumsy, Inspector Clouseau type that tries to give Elmo his years of inexperience (a concept not used as much as it should). Oscar's the grouchy grandfather... Telly's the more pessimistic, easily frustrated big brother... even Big Bird has a nice play with Elmo.
Abby doesn't.
Now, I've often said Abby has the potential to be a great character, but they somehow never tap it. She works well when paired with characters that are prone to frustrated breakdowns or any sort of exasperation... the adults, Telly, Baby Bear... she works similar to Mumford, but has the innocence of a child making mistakes (which she either shrugs off, gets frustrated with, or even depressingly doubts herself). The character was introduced as extremely shy, and I'm glad she came out of her shell, but now she has no shell... and there was personality in there. Even in her own segment, she's little miss perfect and rarely instigates trouble (leaving it too often to Blogg and Gonnigan).
But when you put her with Elmo... there's something wrong with the chemistry. It's like the writers try too hard to stay away from having Elmo get upset at Abby, so it's all the time smiles. I swear that somehow, someone's stifling the writers from doing so.And it's just so inorganic and forced when they're together. They're treated as mascots for the show, and when they're together, it's like Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh.
A movie just can't seem too interesting if there isn't some tension between the two characters at some point.