Ka-chow: ‘Cars 2′ to Suck a Year Early
By Craig Kennedy - September 24th, 2008; 1:56 pm
Generally I’m willing to give Pixar the benefit of a doubt — they’ve earned it — but this business of willingly caving in to sequels, particularly a sequel to the weakest movie they’ve ever made, continues to give me pause.
Originally slated for 2012, Cars 2 will now be crossing the finish line in 2011. Maybe they’re in a hurry to finish before Larry the Cable Guy’s one-joke persona runs out of gas once and for all.
Source: THR
Filed under: News, Release Dates
Tags: Cars, Cars 2, Pixar
I’d hazard a guess that two factors figure heavily in this one: Merchandising and John Lasseter.
Lasseter, the guy running Pixar, is also the guy that birthed the first Cars. He loves the concept from the first movie and (I’m fairly certain) loves that movie. It should come as no surprise that Lasseter’s two pet projects at Pixar, Toy Story and Cars, are both the two movies with sequels to their names.
The Boss gets to call the shots, after all.
Second is merchandising. Even though Pixar movies do great box office and stellar DVD sales, most of them have weak merchandising tie-ins. Cars has TONS of merchandising options and they sold. A lot. Of toys. Another Cars movie means they can sell even more toys, bedding, coloring books, wallpaper, cake decorations, etc, and kids will eat it up with a spoon.
I am loathe to even hint it, but in these respects Lasseter is looking a little too much like George Lucas for my comfort level.
I want to believe Joel, I really do.
Honestly, I enjoyed the concept of Cars myself, but the execution (and Larry the Cable Guy) left me cold.
You’re dead right about the merchandizing. There is a crapload of Cars swag. Again, that’s fine if it was serving the cause of a better movie.
Toy Story 3, however, I welcome with open arms.
Speaking of weak sequels…, more rumors abound from /film:
http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/09/24/johnny-depp-cast-in-burtons-alice-the-lone-ranger-and-pirates-of-the-caribbean-4/
I laughed when I read this. Seriously, my gut reaction was that it was a joke article. Opinions?
Maybe the author smoked a couple of joints before he went in.
I agree with the Joel on the possible push behind this, and I agree with others that this isn’t necessarily a Pixar to get excited about…coughThePixarStorycough…
Jeff, it’s heresy to say this I know, but the Toy Story flicks aren’t my favorite in the Pixar universe. Still. TS3 melts my butter much more than Cars 2.
Thank you for reminding me of that Daniel, I suppose I should finally listen to your advice.
Alison…so what is it? Is Depp Lone Ranger or Tonto? Shouldn’t they pick…you know…a Native American to be Tonto?
Seems logical to me, Craig.
Which means that this will be a very different Lone Ranger. One in which the sidekick is the lead character.
I guess it doesn’t matter. My interest is about zero either way.
I agree 100%.
Oh, Larry the Cable Guy. I know cars can make gas jokes, but can they make poop jokes? If not, this may be outside Larry’s range.