Cars 3 and Planes 2 are coming!

[gaastra]

http://route66news.com/2013/08/17/micha ... -a-cars-3/

and

http://www.dvdizzy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 9&start=60

Are you ready for another cars movie?

[Bill1978]

I'm ready for Cars 3 if the main part of the film is set in Radiator Springs, doesn't feature races and Mater isn't the lead. Is that too much to ask?

Or and also don't do anything that makes me sit there and wonder about how the world the characters inhabit exists and how it functions.

[EricJ]

I'm ready for Cars 3 if the main part of the film is set in Radiator Springs, doesn't feature races and Mater isn't the lead. Is that too much to ask?.

Sounds like 3 isn't the "apology" for 2, but that they do want to go back to the original formula of the Great American Highway--California Rt. 1, from the sound of it.
As for how much Mater...I'm beginning to think that's Lasseter's own neurotic bug. NOBODY could like the character as much as we get him at the west-coast Disneyland.

[Dacey]

I could be wrong, but I don't see this as a sure sign that Cars 3 is actually happening. Which is not to say it won't--the audience is certainly there--, but I don't consider someone who's not really an "actor" to be a reliable source.

[EricJ]

I could be wrong, but I don't see this as a sure sign that Cars 3 is actually happening. Which is not to say it won't--the audience is certainly there--, but I don't consider someone who's not really an "actor" to be a reliable source.

It's a Toy Story 4--"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure, really busy on it at the moment, I think, gotta go..."--but again, I can see them trying to close 2's drafty open door with a more respectable followup for the legacy.
Sell JL on "Highways', and they'll make it.

[Ben]

I'm one of the few, it seems, that thinks the Cars films should all be different casts each time. Although I thought the sequel was laborious, the spy elements would have been quite fun had they not had to shoehorn McQueen and Mater into it. They could have gone forward with having different stories and characters each time, each set in the Cars world (a world I find stupid to start off with, I grant you).

That's one of the things I quite liked about Planes (even though with Lasseter overseeing it one really couldn't call it anything else than a Cars 3 extension anyway) was that they shifted the focus to other vehicles, even if the story was basically the first Cars over again.

We knew Planes 2 was coming along anyway (though will it be a theatrical or DTV release now that the first one bombed, haha, in theaters), but Cars 3 has been rumored for a good long while. It wouldn't be a surprise to find they're working on it - you can bet that any successful animated film gets a sequel thought about thesedays, even if they don't eventually get made, and they go through development until the time is right to either cancel it because the story doesn't work, or announce it as it's robust enough to put into production.

In this case it's a consultant on the series that has obviously been invited to share his knowledge of Route 99 (betcha McQueen takes the wrong road after a sign is hung upside down), and so at the very least we have to take his info seriously, even if the film isn't announced or ever goes into production. But it's my guess it unfortunately well...perhaps after another one or two Planes come along first...?

[Dacey]

*checks* Did Ben just actually kinda sorta maybe for the first time ever get a fact sort of kind of wrong?

To be fair, it may be a matter of perspective, but from where I stand, Planes didn't bomb. It's far and away Disney Toon Studio's biggest release ever:

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=planes.htm

Consider the budget, and those sure-to-be-huge DVD sales are just going to be gravy now.

[gaastra]

Planes didn't bomb. It was a direct to dvd movie that got a big screen release. It made it's money back and they still have the dvd sales yet. Planes 2 from what i read is getting a big screen release next year!

[Bill1978]

I admit I was surprised Ben described it as a bomb. As far as I could tell people in the know were at least calling it a moderate success. It also seemed to have legs at the box office.

[EricJ]

The people who thought it was from Pixar hated it; those who knew better rather liked it.
And cleaned up in the August "back to school" doldrums when even the most unlikely family film can get a break with all the competition out of the way.

[Randall]

Just under 90 million in the US alone. For a DTV title, that is pretty good. It would've been a weak Pixar theatrical, but that comparison is only partly fair.

[Ben]

I wouldn't say I got a fact wrong...I actually made that comment after reading back some insider feedback on the theater owners' side of things: whatever the film's roots, it was re-tooled (like Toy Story 2) and released as a big summer Disney animation; with the Cars connection, the theaters were expecting Cars-style results (especially as they begrudgingly accepted taking a DTV title to begin with, which hasn't worked out so well for the one or two Tink movies that got international theatrical releases).

In short, yeah, it was a DTV...and as such it can be called a "moderate success". But it's not a hit by any stretch: the "worst" of the 1990s films made more than that, and that's without inflation! There was a time when a Disney film grossing $100m was a disappointment: true that this was basically a glorified commercial for the DVD release, but after the split with exhibitors that's only $40m for Disney and it'll be interesting to see how the DVD sales go once most of the targeted audience will have probably seen the film and may well choose to buy something else they haven't seen (and heard better things about) for their holiday movie purchases.

Yeah, sorta, kinda wrong. But not really.

[Dacey]

Maybe. But ranking it against Disney's "big films" doesn't quite seem like the right comparison, especially with its August release. To me it seems more like Return to Never Land, Jungle Book II and The Tigger Movie...all movies released in the off season--"hits" even, I would call them--that turned in a decent profit during the off-season. And when you consider that Planes out-grossed "big players" like Turbo and The Smurfs 2, its numbers look even better.

Not sure why I'm defending the returns of a movie I haven't even seen. I guess I spend way too much time talking about this stuff.

[Ben]

Haha...I haven't seen it either, but August is not an "off-season" slot. End of summer, sure, but still a breeding ground for late entry hits, which Disney was hoping for (and, okay, somewhat got). And you don't want to compare Planes with the "big players" like Turbo and Smurfs, but that's just what Disney did in putting it up against them, again which worked to their favor in the grosses it got back over those films. But in raising Planes from a DTV to a theatrical and putting it out against films like those...Disney was exactly playing that game and, based off the back of the Cars franchise, they knew it.

Had Planes been a little unknown film - even from Disney - which started as a DTV and it turned out good enough to warrant a big screen release, then yeah, I'd be right behind it if it was good and would be hoping for good box office results. In this case, Planes had the big Cars logo to spin off from and a huge marketing spend (which, if you include in its production budget, doesn't make the numbers so appealing after all), and Disney positioned it with big ambitions. It wasn't a "little plane that could" story...Planes came out as a big Disney film with franchise roots and intentions, and it should be compared that way (as it has been by those who measured it up against Cars and Cars 2).

See my point? (And I don't know why I'm harping on about this either!)

[gaastra]

Planes 2 teaser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8dneO2-Xcs