Cars (film)
Encyclopedia
Cars is a 2006 American animated family film
produced by Pixar
and directed by John Lasseter
and co-directed by Joe Ranft
. It is the seventh Disney·Pixar feature film, and Pixar's final, independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney. Set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic
cars and other vehicles, it features voices by Owen Wilson
, Larry the Cable Guy
, Paul Newman
(in his final non-documentary feature), Bonnie Hunt
, Tony Shalhoub
, Cheech Marin
, Michael Wallis
, George Carlin
, Paul Dooley
, Jenifer Lewis
, Guido Quaroni
, Michael Keaton
, Katherine Helmond
, and John Ratzenberger
as well as voice cameos
by several celebrities including Jeremy Piven
, Jeremy Clarkson
, Richard Petty
, Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
, Bob Costas
, Darrell Waltrip
, Jay Leno
, Michael Schumacher
, Tom
and Ray Magliozzi
from NPR's Car Talk
, and Mario Andretti
. The film is also the second Pixar film—after A Bug's Life
—to have an entirely non-human cast.
Cars premiered on May 26, 2006 at Lowe's Motor Speedway
in Concord
, North Carolina, and was released on June 9, 2006, to generally favorable reviews. It was nominated for two Academy Awards
, including Best Animated Feature, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film
. It was released on DVD November 7, 2006 and on Blu-ray Disc
in late 2007. Related merchandise, including scale models of several of the cars, broke records for retail sales of merchandise based on a Disney·Pixar film, with an estimated $5 billion in sales.
A sequel, Cars 2
, was released on June 24, 2011.
motor vehicles. The film begins with the last race of the Piston Cup championship, which ends in a three-way tie between retiring veteran Strip Weathers, perennial runner-up Chick Hicks, and rookie Lightning McQueen
. The tiebreaker
race is scheduled for one week later at the Los Angeles International Speedway. Lightning is desperate to win the race, since it would allow him to leave the unglamorous sponsorship of Rust-Eze, a rust treatment for old cars, and allow him to take The King's place as the sponsored car of the lucrative Dinoco team. Eager to start practice in California as soon as possible, Lightning pushes his big rig
, Mack, to travel all night long. While McQueen is sleeping, the exhausted Mack drifts off, and is startled by a gang of reckless street racers, causing McQueen to fall out the back of the truck into the road. McQueen wakes in the middle of traffic, and speeds off the highway to find Mack, ending up in a run-down town of Radiator Springs and inadvertently ruining the pavement of its main road.
After being arrested and impounded overnight, McQueen is ordered by the town's judge and doctor, Doc Hudson, to leave town immediately. The local lawyer Sally Carrera insists that McQueen be given community service
to repave the road, to which Doc agrees. McQueen tries to repave it in a single day, but it turns out to be shoddy and McQueen is ordered to repave the road again, which takes several days to complete. During this time, he becomes friends with several of the cars, and learns that Radiator Springs used to be a popular stopover along U.S. Route 66
, but with the construction of Interstate 40
bypassing the town, it was effectively taken off the map. McQueen also discovers that Doc is really the Fabulous Hudson Hornet
, a three-time Piston Cup winner who was forced out of racing after an accident, and quickly forgotten by the sport. McQueen finishes the road, which has invigorated the cars to improve their town, and spends an extra day in town with his new friends, before Mack and the media descend on the town, led by a tip to McQueen's location. McQueen reluctantly leaves with the media to get to California in time for the race, while Sally chastises Doc after discovering that he had tipped off the media to McQueen's whereabouts, not wanting to be discovered himself instead.
At the speedway, McQueen's mind is not fully set on the race, and he soon falls into last place. He is surprised to discover that Doc Hudson, decked out in his old racing colors, has taken over as his crew chief, along with several other friends from Radiator Springs to help in the pit. Inspired and recalling tricks he learned from Doc and his friends, McQueen quickly emerges to lead the race into the final laps. Hicks, refusing to lose, sends Weathers into a dangerous accident. Seeing this and recalling Doc's fate, McQueen stops just short of the finish line, allowing Hicks to win, and drives back to push Weathers over the finish line. The crowd and media condemn Hicks' victory and give praise to McQueen's sportsmanship. Though offered the Dinoco sponsorship deal, McQueen declines, insisting on staying with his current sponsors as an appreciation of their past support. Later, back at Radiator Springs, McQueen returns and announces that he will be setting up his headquarters there, helping to put Radiator Springs back on the map.
, who died in a car accident in 2005. The film was the second to be dedicated to his memory, after Corpse Bride
. This is also the last (non-documentary) movie for Paul Newman
before his retirement in 2007 and his death in 2008. It turned out to be the highest-grossing film of his career.
. Later, production resumed with major script changes.
John Lasseter
has said that the idea for Cars was born after he took a cross-country road trip with his wife and five sons in 2000. When he returned to the studio after vacation, he contacted Michael Wallis
, a Route 66 historian. Wallis then led eleven Pixar animators in rented white Cadillacs on two different road trips across the route to research the film.
In 2001, the movie's working title was Route 66 (after U.S. Route 66
), but in 2002, the title was changed to prevent people from thinking it was related to the 1960 television show with the same name
. In addition, Lightning McQueen's number was originally going to be 57 (Lasseter's birth year), but was changed to 95 (the year Toy Story
was released).
Unlike most anthropomorphic cars, the eyes of the cars in this film were placed on the windshield (which resembles the Tonka
Talking Trucks, and the characters from Tex Avery
's One Cab's Family short and Disney's own Susie the Little Blue Coupe
), rather than within the headlights. According to production designer
Bob Pauley, "From the very beginning of this project, John Lasseter
had it in his mind to have the eyes be in the windshield. For one thing, it separates our characters from the more common approach where you have little cartoon eyes in the headlights. For another, he thought that having the eyes down near the mouth at the front end of the car feels more like a snake. With the eyes set in the windshield, the point of view is more human-like, and made it feel like the whole car could be involved in the animation of the character.
The characters also use their tires as hands and feet, the exceptions being the various tow truck characters that sometimes use their tow hooks, and the various forklift characters, which use their forks. Some cars are shown shuffling sideways by moving their wheels about on their suspensions.
Computers used in the development of the film were four times faster than those used in The Incredibles
and 1,000 times faster than those used in Toy Story
. To build the cars, the animators used computer platforms very similar to those used in the design of real-world automobiles.
. The venue for the Piston Cup tiebreaker race (the Los Angeles International Speedway) is a conglomeration of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
, the Arroyo Seco
in Pasadena where the Rose Bowl
is located, as well as the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. The Scoring Pylon (showing numbers 43, 86, and 95) is taken from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
.
The sign "City of Emeryville – Closed for the race" is a nod to Pixar
's headquarters in Emeryville
, California in the San Francisco Bay Area
.
, New Mexico and the Sonoran Desert
in California. However, the physical location of Radiator Springs in relation to I-40 is similar to that of Peach Springs
, Arizona.
Lasseter told film critic Joe Williams
of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
that much of the story is based on the recollections of barber Angel Delgadillo in the Route 66 town of Seligman
, Arizona, where business withered soon after the opening of I-40.
Willy's Butte resembles the landmark of Mexican Hat
, Utah, but also resembles a classic Pontiac
hood ornament.
There is an "Ornament Valley" (a reference to Monument Valley
).
The epilogue
shows a map of the area of Arizona
around Radiator Springs, including car-related place names such as "Carburetor County" and "Cadillac Range". The latter is a north-to-south mountain range with many fin-backed jagged peaks, a reference to the famous Cadillac Ranch
sculpture in Amarillo
, Texas.
Lizzie's Curio Shop in Radiator Springs resembles the crazy Route 66 jumble of memorabilia and knick-knacks at Hackberry General Store in Hackberry, Arizona and the Sand Hills Curiosity Shop, aka the City Meat Market building in Erick
, Oklahoma.
The bridge that McQueen sees Sally driving on resembles several bridges on Route 66, including the Cyrus Avery
Route 66 Memorial Bridge in Tulsa, the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena
, California, and the now-closed bridge over Diablo Canyon at Two Guns, Arizona.
Flo's V8 cafe is designed to look like a V8 engine
head on, with a circular air filter, tappet covers, spark plugs, pistons and connecting rods as the supports for the shelter. The blinking neon lights on the spark plugs blink in the firing order of a Ford flathead
V8.
The railroad grade crossing at which Lightning McQueen outruns a passenger train on his way to Radiator Springs is protected by a pair of antique "upper-quadrant" wigwag
crossing signals which accurately depict those once made by the Magnetic Signal Company
in both appearance and start-up. Few are left in actual operation in the United States, and many have been replaced with modern crossing gates, red lights and bells.
), "Monster Trucks, Inc." (Monsters, Inc.
) and A Bug's Life
, whose characters have been rendered as vehicles in the style of Cars.
There are a few sights of the front page of a newspaper named The Daily Exhaust.
places and people.
To quote the Pixar crew:
Among the many references to Route 66 landmarks and personalities:
in Cars. As Mack is en route to California at 17:44 in the film, the group of small birds can briefly be seen (and heard) sitting on their familiar telephone wire. In addition, the Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story also makes a cameo outside of the race track, at the final race in the movie.
was released by Walt Disney Records
on June 6, 2006. Nine tracks on the soundtrack are by popular artists, while the remaining eleven are score cues by Randy Newman
. It has two versions of the classic Bobby Troup
jazz standard "Route 66
" (popularized by Nat King Cole
), one by Chuck Berry
and a new version recorded specifically for the film's credits performed by John Mayer
. Brad Paisley
contributed two of the nine tracks to the album, one being "Find Yourself" used for the end credits.
praised it as "one of Pixar's most imaginative and thoroughly appealing movies ever" and Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
called it "a work of American art as classic as it is modern."
Some critics expressed that Cars did not hold up to the standard of other Pixar
films due to its lengthy story, especially after the acclaim received by The Incredibles
, Pixar's previous film. "The movie is great to look at and a lot of fun," wrote critic Roger Ebert
, "but somehow lacks the extra push of the other Pixar films." Laura Clifford of website Reeling Reviews wrote that the film's "only real drawback is its failure to inspire awe with its visuals and to thoroughly transport with its storytelling.
Rotten Tomatoes
gave Cars a fresh 74% (with an average of 6.9), yet no other Pixar film, until the release of Cars 2
, has ever scored less than 91%, but it still received a "Certified Fresh" rating, and it earned a 73/100 on Metacritic, both the second lowest attributed to a Pixar film.
the following weekend. It went on to gross $461,981,604 worldwide (ranking number 6 in 2006 films) and $244,082,982 in the United States (the third highest-grossing film of 2006 in the country, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
and Night at the Museum
). It was the highest-grossing animated film of 2006 in the United States, but lost to Ice Age: The Meltdown
in worldwide totals.
and the National Board of Review named it the best Animated Feature Film of 2006. Cars also received the title of Best Reviewed Animated Feature of 2006 from Rotten Tomatoes
. Randy Newman
and James Taylor
received a Grammy Award for the song "Our Town," which later went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song
(an award it lost to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth
). The film also earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, but it lost to Happy Feet
. Cars was also selected as the Favorite Family Movie at the 33rd People's Choice Awards
. Perhaps the most prestigious award that Cars received was the inaugural Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film
. Cars also won the highest award for animation in 2006, the Best Animated Feature Annie Award.
The film was also nominated for AFI's 10 Top 10
in the "Animation" genre.
and the film's theatrical short One Man Band
, as well as Inspiration for Cars, a 16 minute long documentary about Cars featuring John Lasseter
, the director. It also had a version of the Pixar short Boundin'
as an Easter Egg.
According to the Walt Disney Company, five million copies of the DVD were sold in the first two days it was available. In its first week it sold 6,250,856 units and 15,370,791 units in total ($246,198,859).
Unlike previous Pixar DVD releases, there is no two-disc special edition, and no plans to release one in the future. According to Sara Maher, DVD Production Manager at Pixar, John Lasseter and Pixar were preoccupied with productions like Ratatouille
. Additional extras not seen on the DVD have since been released on the official DVD website.
In the US and Canada, there were bonus discs available with the purchase of Cars at Wal-Mart
and Target
. Wal-Mart featured a Geared-Up Bonus DVD Disc that focused on the music of the film, including the "Life Is A Highway" video, The Making of "Life Is A Highway", Cars: The Making of the Music, and Under The Hood (a special that originally aired on the ABC Family
cable channel). Target's bonus was a Rev'd Up DVD Disc that featured material that was mostly already released as part of the official Cars podcast
and focused on the inspiration and production of the movie.
Cars was also released on Blu-ray Disc
on November 6, 2007.
described The Little Cars series (Os Carrinhos in Portuguese
), a Brazilian computer graphics film series, as a derivative of Cars. Canônico discussed whether lawsuits from Pixar would appear. The Brazilian Ministry of Culture
posted Marcus Aurelius Canônico's article on its website.
It has also been noted that the plot of Cars bears a striking resemblance to that of Doc Hollywood
, the 1991 romantic comedy which stars Michael J. Fox
as a hotshot young doctor, who, after causing a traffic accident in a small town, is sentenced to work at the town hospital, falls in love with a local law student and eventually acquires an appreciation for small town values.
for a Spring 2013 release.
Family film
A family film is a film genre that is designed to appeal to a variety of age groups and, thus, families.In December 2005, Steven Spielberg's 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial came first in a poll of the 100 Greatest Family Films. The genre today generates billions of dollars per annum.Family...
produced by Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
and directed by John Lasseter
John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter is an American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering....
and co-directed by Joe Ranft
Joe Ranft
Joseph Henry "Joe" Ranft was an American screenwriter, animator, storyboard artist and voice actor who worked for Pixar and Disney. His brother, Jerome Ranft, is a sculptor who also worked on several Pixar movies....
. It is the seventh Disney·Pixar feature film, and Pixar's final, independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney. Set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
cars and other vehicles, it features voices by Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson
Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...
, Larry the Cable Guy
Larry the Cable Guy
Daniel Lawrence Whitney , better known by his stage name and character Larry the Cable Guy, is an American comedian, actor, and former radio personality....
, Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
(in his final non-documentary feature), Bonnie Hunt
Bonnie Hunt
Bonnie Lynne Hunt is an American actress, comedian, writer, director, television producer and daytime television host.- Early life :...
, Tony Shalhoub
Tony Shalhoub
Anthony Marcus "Tony" Shalhoub is an American actor of Lebanese descent. His television work includes the roles of Antonio Scarpacci on Wings and sleuth Adrian Monk on the TV series Monk. He has won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for his work in Monk...
, Cheech Marin
Cheech Marin
Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin is an American comedian, actor and writer who gained recognition as part of the comedy act Cheech & Chong during the 1970s and early 1980s, and as Don Johnson's partner, Insp. Joe Dominguez on Nash Bridges...
, Michael Wallis
Michael Wallis
Michael Wallis is a journalist and popular historian of the Western United States. He has written seventeen books, including Route 66: The Mother Road, about the historic highway U.S. Route 66...
, George Carlin
George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
, Paul Dooley
Paul Dooley
-Personal life:Dooley was born Paul Dooley Brown in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the son of Ruth Irene , a homemaker, and Peter James Brown, a factory worker. Dooley was a cartoonist as a youth and drew a strip for a local paper in Parkersburg. He joined the Navy before discovering acting while at...
, Jenifer Lewis
Jenifer Lewis
Jenifer Jeanette Lewis is an American film and television actress and singer.-Early life:Lewis was born in Kinloch, Missouri, to a nurse's aid mother and a factory worker father. She attended college at Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri...
, Guido Quaroni
Guido Quaroni
Guido Quaroni is an Italian voice actor and Supervising Technical Director at Pixar Animation Studios. He was one of the developers of solidThinking, a NURBS based 3D modeling and rendering software....
, Michael Keaton
Michael Keaton
Michael John Douglas , better known by the stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor known for his early comedic roles, most notably his performance as the title character of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice . Keaton is also famous for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's...
, Katherine Helmond
Katherine Helmond
Katherine Marie Helmond is an American film, theater and television actress, who played Emily Dickinson on Meeting of Minds, as well as such fictional characters as Jessica Tate on Soap, Mona Robinson on Who's the Boss?, Doris Sherman on Coach, and Lois Whelan on Everybody Loves...
, and John Ratzenberger
John Ratzenberger
John Deszo Ratzenberger is an American actor, voice actor, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as Cliff Clavin in Cheers.-Early life:...
as well as voice cameos
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
by several celebrities including Jeremy Piven
Jeremy Piven
Jeremy Samuel Piven is an American film producer and actor best known for his role as Ari Gold in the television series Entourage for which he has won three Emmy Awards as well as several other nominations for Best Supporting Actor....
, Jeremy Clarkson
Jeremy Clarkson
Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson is an English broadcaster, journalist and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear along with co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May...
, Richard Petty
Richard Petty
Richard Lee Petty is a former NASCAR driver who raced in the Strictly Stock/Grand National Era and the NASCAR Winston Cup Series...
, Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
* NOTE: References to "Earnhardt", "he", and "him" refer to the subject of this article, unless otherwise specified. References to his father will include "Sr."...
, Bob Costas
Bob Costas
Robert Quinlan "Bob" Costas is an American sportscaster, on the air for the NBC network since the early 1980s.-Early life:...
, Darrell Waltrip
Darrell Waltrip
Darrell Lee Waltrip is a 3-time NASCAR Cup Series champion , 3-time runner-up , winner of the 1989 Daytona 500 and 5-time winner of the prestigeous Coca-Cola 600 ,...
, Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
, Michael Schumacher
Michael Schumacher
Michael Schumacher is a German Formula One racing driver for the Mercedes GP team. Famous for his eleven-year spell with Ferrari, Schumacher is a seven-time World Champion and is widely regarded as the greatest F1 driver of all time...
, Tom
Tom Magliozzi
Thomas Louis "Click Tappet" Magliozzi is an American radio talk show host. He and his younger brother Ray Magliozzi, also known collectively as Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers, are the hosts of National Public Radio's Car Talk. -Biography:Thomas Louis...
and Ray Magliozzi
Ray Magliozzi
Raymond F. "Clack Tappet" Magliozzi is a co-host of NPR's winning weekly radio show, Car Talk. They are known as "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers"...
from NPR's Car Talk
Car Talk
Car Talk is a radio talk show broadcast weekly on National Public Radio stations throughout the United States and elsewhere. Its subjects are automobiles and repair, and it often takes humorous turns...
, and Mario Andretti
Mario Andretti
Mario Gabriele Andretti is a retired Italian American world champion racing driver, one of the most successful Americans in the history of the sport. He is one of only two drivers to win races in Formula One, IndyCar, World Sportscar Championship and NASCAR...
. The film is also the second Pixar film—after A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life is a 1998 American computer animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 25, 1998. A Bug's Life was the second Disney·Pixar feature film after Toy Story, and the third American computer-animated film after Toy...
—to have an entirely non-human cast.
Cars premiered on May 26, 2006 at Lowe's Motor Speedway
Lowe's Motor Speedway
Charlotte Motor Speedway is a motorsports complex located in Concord, North Carolina, United States 13 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina. The complex features a quad oval track that hosts NASCAR racing including the prestigious Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend and the Sprint All-Star Race...
in Concord
Concord, North Carolina
Concord is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. According to Census 2010, the city has a current population of 79,066. It is the largest city in Cabarrus County and is the county seat. In terms of population, the city of Concord is the second largest city in the Charlotte Metropolitan Area...
, North Carolina, and was released on June 9, 2006, to generally favorable reviews. It was nominated for two Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, including Best Animated Feature, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film
Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film
The Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film was awarded for the first time at the 64th Golden Globe Awards in 2007. It was the first time that the Golden Globe Awards had created a separate category for animated films since its establishment. The nominations are announced in January and...
. It was released on DVD November 7, 2006 and on Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
in late 2007. Related merchandise, including scale models of several of the cars, broke records for retail sales of merchandise based on a Disney·Pixar film, with an estimated $5 billion in sales.
A sequel, Cars 2
Cars 2
Cars 2 is a 2011 American computer-animated action film produced by Pixar, and it is the sequel to the 2006 film, Cars. In the film, race car Lightning McQueen and tow truck Mater head to Japan and Europe to compete in the World Grand Prix, but Mater becomes sidetracked with international espionage...
, was released on June 24, 2011.
Plot
Cars takes place in a world populated by anthropomorphicAnthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
motor vehicles. The film begins with the last race of the Piston Cup championship, which ends in a three-way tie between retiring veteran Strip Weathers, perennial runner-up Chick Hicks, and rookie Lightning McQueen
Lightning McQueen
Lightning McQueen, typically referred to by his surname McQueen, and occasionally called "Stickers" by his girlfriend Sally , is an anthropomorphic racecar and the main protagonist in the 2006 animated Pixar film Cars, and the deuteragonist of its sequel Cars 2...
. The tiebreaker
Tiebreaker
In games and sports, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is used to determine a winner from among players or teams that are tied at the end of a contest, or a set of contests.-In matches:In some situations, the tiebreaker may consist of another round of play...
race is scheduled for one week later at the Los Angeles International Speedway. Lightning is desperate to win the race, since it would allow him to leave the unglamorous sponsorship of Rust-Eze, a rust treatment for old cars, and allow him to take The King's place as the sponsored car of the lucrative Dinoco team. Eager to start practice in California as soon as possible, Lightning pushes his big rig
Semi-trailer truck
A semi-trailer truck, also known as a semi, tractor-trailer, or articulated truck or articulated lorry, is an articulated vehicle consisting of a towing engine , and a semi-trailer A semi-trailer truck, also known as a semi, tractor-trailer, or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) articulated truck...
, Mack, to travel all night long. While McQueen is sleeping, the exhausted Mack drifts off, and is startled by a gang of reckless street racers, causing McQueen to fall out the back of the truck into the road. McQueen wakes in the middle of traffic, and speeds off the highway to find Mack, ending up in a run-down town of Radiator Springs and inadvertently ruining the pavement of its main road.
After being arrested and impounded overnight, McQueen is ordered by the town's judge and doctor, Doc Hudson, to leave town immediately. The local lawyer Sally Carrera insists that McQueen be given community service
Community service
Community service is donated service or activity that is performed by someone or a group of people for the benefit of the public or its institutions....
to repave the road, to which Doc agrees. McQueen tries to repave it in a single day, but it turns out to be shoddy and McQueen is ordered to repave the road again, which takes several days to complete. During this time, he becomes friends with several of the cars, and learns that Radiator Springs used to be a popular stopover along U.S. Route 66
U.S. Route 66
U.S. Route 66 was a highway within the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926 -- with road signs erected the following year...
, but with the construction of Interstate 40
Interstate 40
Interstate 40 is the third-longest major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States, after I-90 and I-80. Its western end is at Interstate 15 in Barstow, California; its eastern end is at a concurrency of U.S. Route 117 and North Carolina Highway 132 in Wilmington, North Carolina...
bypassing the town, it was effectively taken off the map. McQueen also discovers that Doc is really the Fabulous Hudson Hornet
Fabulous Hudson Hornet
The Fabulous Hudson Hornet was a famous NASCAR Grand National and AAA stock car produced by the Hudson Motor Car Company. Marshall Teague and Herb Thomas each drove in a Hudson Hornet that they nicknamed the "Fabulous Hudson Hornet"....
, a three-time Piston Cup winner who was forced out of racing after an accident, and quickly forgotten by the sport. McQueen finishes the road, which has invigorated the cars to improve their town, and spends an extra day in town with his new friends, before Mack and the media descend on the town, led by a tip to McQueen's location. McQueen reluctantly leaves with the media to get to California in time for the race, while Sally chastises Doc after discovering that he had tipped off the media to McQueen's whereabouts, not wanting to be discovered himself instead.
At the speedway, McQueen's mind is not fully set on the race, and he soon falls into last place. He is surprised to discover that Doc Hudson, decked out in his old racing colors, has taken over as his crew chief, along with several other friends from Radiator Springs to help in the pit. Inspired and recalling tricks he learned from Doc and his friends, McQueen quickly emerges to lead the race into the final laps. Hicks, refusing to lose, sends Weathers into a dangerous accident. Seeing this and recalling Doc's fate, McQueen stops just short of the finish line, allowing Hicks to win, and drives back to push Weathers over the finish line. The crowd and media condemn Hicks' victory and give praise to McQueen's sportsmanship. Though offered the Dinoco sponsorship deal, McQueen declines, insisting on staying with his current sponsors as an appreciation of their past support. Later, back at Radiator Springs, McQueen returns and announces that he will be setting up his headquarters there, helping to put Radiator Springs back on the map.
Cast
- Owen WilsonOwen WilsonOwen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...
as Lightning McQueenLightning McQueenLightning McQueen, typically referred to by his surname McQueen, and occasionally called "Stickers" by his girlfriend Sally , is an anthropomorphic racecar and the main protagonist in the 2006 animated Pixar film Cars, and the deuteragonist of its sequel Cars 2...
, described by John Lasseter in the LA Times as "A hybrid between a stock car and a more curvaceous Le Mans endurance racer." - Larry the Cable GuyLarry the Cable GuyDaniel Lawrence Whitney , better known by his stage name and character Larry the Cable Guy, is an American comedian, actor, and former radio personality....
as MaterMater (Cars)Sir Tow Mater or better known as Mater is the deuteragonist in the 2006 animated Pixar film Cars and the main protagonist in its sequel...
, a 1951 International HarvesterInternational HarvesterInternational Harvester Company was a United States agricultural machinery, construction equipment, vehicle, commercial truck, and household and commercial products manufacturer. In 1902, J.P...
L-170 "boom" truck with elements of a mid-1950s ChevroletChevroletChevrolet , also known as Chevy , is a brand of vehicle produced by General Motors Company . Founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted GM founder William C. Durant on November 3, 1911, General Motors acquired Chevrolet in 1918...
. One-Ton Wrecker Tow TruckTow truckA tow truck is a vehicle used to transport motor vehicles to another location , or to recover vehicles which are no longer on a drivable surface.Towing services are generally provided by an emergency road service operator...
. - Paul NewmanPaul NewmanPaul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
as Doc Hudson, a 1951 Hudson HornetHudson HornetThe Hudson Hornet is an automobile that was produced by the Hudson Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan between 1951 and 1954. The Hornet was also built by American Motors Corporation in Kenosha, Wisconsin and marketed under the Hudson brand between 1955 and 1957.The first-generation Hudson...
, later revealed to be the Fabulous Hudson HornetFabulous Hudson HornetThe Fabulous Hudson Hornet was a famous NASCAR Grand National and AAA stock car produced by the Hudson Motor Car Company. Marshall Teague and Herb Thomas each drove in a Hudson Hornet that they nicknamed the "Fabulous Hudson Hornet"....
. - Bonnie HuntBonnie HuntBonnie Lynne Hunt is an American actress, comedian, writer, director, television producer and daytime television host.- Early life :...
as Sally Carrera, a 2002 996-seriesPorsche 996The Porsche 996 is the internal designation for the Porsche 911 model manufactured and sold between 1998 and 2005. It has since been replaced by the Type 997...
Porsche 911Porsche 911The Porsche 911 is a luxury 2-door sports coupe made by Porsche AG of Stuttgart, Germany. It has a distinctive design, rear-engined and with independent rear suspension, an evolution of the swing axle on the Porsche 356. The engine was also air-cooled until the introduction of the Type 996 in 1998...
Carrera. - Tony ShalhoubTony ShalhoubAnthony Marcus "Tony" Shalhoub is an American actor of Lebanese descent. His television work includes the roles of Antonio Scarpacci on Wings and sleuth Adrian Monk on the TV series Monk. He has won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for his work in Monk...
as Luigi, a 1959 Fiat 500Fiat 500The Fiat 500 is a car produced by the Fiat company of Italy between 1957 and 1975, with limited production of the Fiat 500 K estate continuing until 1977. The car was designed by Dante Giacosa....
. - Cheech MarinCheech MarinRichard Anthony "Cheech" Marin is an American comedian, actor and writer who gained recognition as part of the comedy act Cheech & Chong during the 1970s and early 1980s, and as Don Johnson's partner, Insp. Joe Dominguez on Nash Bridges...
as Ramone, a 1959 Chevy Impala LowriderLowrider]A lowrider is a style of car originated by Chicano communities that sits lower to the ground than most other cars. Many lowriders have their suspension systems modified so that their ride can change height at the flip of a switch...
. - Michael WallisMichael WallisMichael Wallis is a journalist and popular historian of the Western United States. He has written seventeen books, including Route 66: The Mother Road, about the historic highway U.S. Route 66...
as Sheriff, a 1949 Mercury Club CoupeMercury (automobile)Mercury was an automobile marque of the Ford Motor Company launched in 1938 by Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford, to market entry-level luxury cars slotted between Ford-branded regular models and Lincoln-branded luxury vehicles, similar to General Motors' Buick brand, and Chrysler's namesake brand...
(police package). - George CarlinGeorge CarlinGeorge Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
as Fillmore, a 1960 VW BusVolkswagen Type 2The Volkswagen Type 2, officially known as the Transporter or Kombi informally as Bus or Camper , was a panel van introduced in 1950 by German automaker Volkswagen as its second car model – following and initially deriving from Volkswagen's first model, the Type 1 , it was given the factory...
. - Paul DooleyPaul Dooley-Personal life:Dooley was born Paul Dooley Brown in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the son of Ruth Irene , a homemaker, and Peter James Brown, a factory worker. Dooley was a cartoonist as a youth and drew a strip for a local paper in Parkersburg. He joined the Navy before discovering acting while at...
as Sarge, a 1941 WillysWillysWillys was the brand name used by Willys-Overland Motors, an American automobile company best known for its design and production of military Jeeps and civilian versions during the 20th century.-Early History:In 1908, John Willys bought the Overland Automotive Division of Standard Wheel Company...
model jeep, in the style used by the US Military. - Jenifer LewisJenifer LewisJenifer Jeanette Lewis is an American film and television actress and singer.-Early life:Lewis was born in Kinloch, Missouri, to a nurse's aid mother and a factory worker father. She attended college at Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri...
as Flo, a 1957 MotoramaMotoramaThe General Motors Motorama was an auto show staged by GM from 1949 to 1961. These automobile extravaganzas were designed to whet public appetite and boost automobile sales with displays of fancy prototypes, concept vehicles and other special or halo models. Motorama grew out of Alfred P. Sloan's...
show car. - Guido QuaroniGuido QuaroniGuido Quaroni is an Italian voice actor and Supervising Technical Director at Pixar Animation Studios. He was one of the developers of solidThinking, a NURBS based 3D modeling and rendering software....
as Guido, a custom forklift, resembling an IsettaIsettaThe Isetta is an Italian-designed microcar built in a number of different countries, including Spain, Belgium, France, Brazil, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Produced in the post-World War II years, a time when cheap short-distance transportation was most needed, it became one of the most...
at the front. - Richard PettyRichard PettyRichard Lee Petty is a former NASCAR driver who raced in the Strictly Stock/Grand National Era and the NASCAR Winston Cup Series...
as Strip "The King" Weathers. The car's design was based on Richard Petty's 1970 Plymouth SuperbirdPlymouth SuperbirdThe short-lived Plymouth Road Runner Superbird was a highly modified version of the Plymouth Road Runner with well known graphics and horn. It was the factory's follow up stock car racing design for the 1970 season to the Dodge Charger Daytona of 1969, and incorporated many engineering changes and... - Michael KeatonMichael KeatonMichael John Douglas , better known by the stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor known for his early comedic roles, most notably his performance as the title character of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice . Keaton is also famous for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's...
as Chick Hicks, described by Pixar as a generic 1980s stock car. Strongly resembles a 1978–88 General Motors G-BodyGM G platform (RWD)The General Motors G platform was an automobile platform designation used for mid-sized rear wheel drive cars first from 1969-1972 and again from 1982 to 1988....
such as Buick RegalBuick RegalThe Buick Regal is a mid-size car introduced by General Motors for the 1973 model year. North American production ended in 2004 and began again in 2011. For the 2011 model year, Buick re-introduced the Regal to the North American market, positioned as an upscale sport sedan...
or Grand National. - Katherine HelmondKatherine HelmondKatherine Marie Helmond is an American film, theater and television actress, who played Emily Dickinson on Meeting of Minds, as well as such fictional characters as Jessica Tate on Soap, Mona Robinson on Who's the Boss?, Doris Sherman on Coach, and Lois Whelan on Everybody Loves...
as Lizzie, a 1923 Ford Model TFord Model TThe Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from September 1908 to May 1927...
. - John RatzenbergerJohn RatzenbergerJohn Deszo Ratzenberger is an American actor, voice actor, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as Cliff Clavin in Cheers.-Early life:...
as Mack, a 1985 Mack Super-LinerMack Super-LinerThe Mack Super-Liner is a class 8 heavy-duty truck that was introduced by Mack Trucks in 1977, to replace the Mack RW model. Its production lasted for fifteen years until it was discontinued in 1993. The model designation is RW...
. - Joe RanftJoe RanftJoseph Henry "Joe" Ranft was an American screenwriter, animator, storyboard artist and voice actor who worked for Pixar and Disney. His brother, Jerome Ranft, is a sculptor who also worked on several Pixar movies....
as Red, a 1960s style fire truck (most closely resembles a mid-1960s)
Production
Cars is the last film worked on by Joe RanftJoe Ranft
Joseph Henry "Joe" Ranft was an American screenwriter, animator, storyboard artist and voice actor who worked for Pixar and Disney. His brother, Jerome Ranft, is a sculptor who also worked on several Pixar movies....
, who died in a car accident in 2005. The film was the second to be dedicated to his memory, after Corpse Bride
Corpse Bride
Corpse Bride, often promoted as Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, is a 2005 stop-motion-animated fantasy musical film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton. It is set in a fictional Victorian era village in Europe. Johnny Depp led an all-star cast as the voice of Victor, while Helena Bonham Carter ...
. This is also the last (non-documentary) movie for Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
before his retirement in 2007 and his death in 2008. It turned out to be the highest-grossing film of his career.
Development
The original script (called The Yellow Car, about an electric car living in a gas-guzzling world), some of the original drawings and characters were produced in 1998 and the producers agreed that Cars could be the next movie after A Bug's Life and would be released in early 1999, particularly around June 4. However, the movie was eventually scrapped in favor of Toy Story 2Toy Story 2
Toy Story 2 is a 1999 American computer animated film directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon. It is the sequel to the 1995 film Toy Story, released by Walt Disney Pictures and the third film to be produced by Pixar...
. Later, production resumed with major script changes.
John Lasseter
John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter is an American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering....
has said that the idea for Cars was born after he took a cross-country road trip with his wife and five sons in 2000. When he returned to the studio after vacation, he contacted Michael Wallis
Michael Wallis
Michael Wallis is a journalist and popular historian of the Western United States. He has written seventeen books, including Route 66: The Mother Road, about the historic highway U.S. Route 66...
, a Route 66 historian. Wallis then led eleven Pixar animators in rented white Cadillacs on two different road trips across the route to research the film.
In 2001, the movie's working title was Route 66 (after U.S. Route 66
U.S. Route 66
U.S. Route 66 was a highway within the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926 -- with road signs erected the following year...
), but in 2002, the title was changed to prevent people from thinking it was related to the 1960 television show with the same name
Route 66 (TV series)
Route 66 is an American TV series in which two young men traveled across America. The show ran weekly on CBS from 1960 to 1964. It starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and, for two and a half seasons, George Maharis as Buz Murdock. Maharis was ill for much of the third season, during which time Tod...
. In addition, Lightning McQueen's number was originally going to be 57 (Lasseter's birth year), but was changed to 95 (the year Toy Story
Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
was released).
Animation
For the cars themselves, Lasseter also visited the design studios of the Big Three Detroit automakers, particularly J Mays of Ford Motor Company. Lasseter learned how real cars were designed.Unlike most anthropomorphic cars, the eyes of the cars in this film were placed on the windshield (which resembles the Tonka
Tonka
Tonka is an American toy company most known for its signature toy trucks and construction equipment.-History:On September 18, 1946 Mound Metalcraft was created in Mound, Minnesota with three men as partners, Lynn Everett Baker , Avery F. Crounse, and Alvin F. Tesch. The first products produced by...
Talking Trucks, and the characters from Tex Avery
Tex Avery
Frederick Bean "Fred/Tex" Avery was an American animator, cartoonist, voice actor and director, famous for producing animated cartoons during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. He did his most significant work for the Warner Bros...
's One Cab's Family short and Disney's own Susie the Little Blue Coupe
Susie the Little Blue Coupe
Susie the Little Blue Coupe is an animated short film released theatrically by Walt Disney Studios on 6 June 1952. The eight-minute film was directed by Clyde Geronimi and based on an original short-story by Bill Peet...
), rather than within the headlights. According to production designer
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
Bob Pauley, "From the very beginning of this project, John Lasseter
John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter is an American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering....
had it in his mind to have the eyes be in the windshield. For one thing, it separates our characters from the more common approach where you have little cartoon eyes in the headlights. For another, he thought that having the eyes down near the mouth at the front end of the car feels more like a snake. With the eyes set in the windshield, the point of view is more human-like, and made it feel like the whole car could be involved in the animation of the character.
The characters also use their tires as hands and feet, the exceptions being the various tow truck characters that sometimes use their tow hooks, and the various forklift characters, which use their forks. Some cars are shown shuffling sideways by moving their wheels about on their suspensions.
Computers used in the development of the film were four times faster than those used in The Incredibles
The Incredibles
The Incredibles is a 2004 American computer-animated action-comedy superhero film about a family of superheroes who are forced to hide their powers. It was written and directed by Brad Bird, a former director and executive consultant of The Simpsons, and was produced by Pixar and distributed by...
and 1,000 times faster than those used in Toy Story
Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
. To build the cars, the animators used computer platforms very similar to those used in the design of real-world automobiles.
Settings
The track on which the opening race (Motor Speedway of the South) takes place is based on an enlarged version of Bristol Motor SpeedwayBristol Motor Speedway
Bristol Motor Speedway, formerly known as Bristol International Raceway and Bristol Raceway is a NASCAR short track venue located in Bristol, Tennessee. Constructed in 1960, it held its first NASCAR race on July 30, 1961...
. The venue for the Piston Cup tiebreaker race (the Los Angeles International Speedway) is a conglomeration of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is a large outdoor sports stadium in the University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, at Exposition Park, that is home to the Pacific-12 Conference's University of Southern California Trojans football team...
, the Arroyo Seco
Arroyo Seco (Los Angeles County)
The Arroyo Seco, meaning "dry stream" in Spanish, is a seasonal river, canyon, watershed, and cultural area in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The Arroyo Seco has been called the most celebrated canyon in Southern California.-River course:...
in Pasadena where the Rose Bowl
Rose Bowl (stadium)
The Rose Bowl is an outdoor athletic stadium in Pasadena, California, U.S., in Los Angeles County. The stadium is the site of the annual college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl, held on New Year's Day. In 1982, it became the home field of the UCLA Bruins college football team of the Pac-12...
is located, as well as the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. The Scoring Pylon (showing numbers 43, 86, and 95) is taken from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, located in Speedway, Indiana in the United States, is the home of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race and the Brickyard 400....
.
The sign "City of Emeryville – Closed for the race" is a nod to Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
's headquarters in Emeryville
Emeryville, California
Emeryville is a small city located in Alameda County, California, in the United States. It is located in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, extending to the shore of San Francisco Bay. Its proximity to San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, the University of California, Berkeley, and...
, California in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
.
Radiator Springs and vicinity
The setting for the fictional town of Radiator Springs is situated between GallupGallup, New Mexico
- Demographics :As of the census of 2000, there were 20,209 people, 6,810 households, and 4,869 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,513.7 people per square mile...
, New Mexico and the Sonoran Desert
Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which straddles part of the United States-Mexico border and covers large parts of the U.S. states of Arizona and California and the northwest Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur. It is one of the largest and hottest...
in California. However, the physical location of Radiator Springs in relation to I-40 is similar to that of Peach Springs
Peach Springs, Arizona
Peach Springs is a census-designated place in Mohave County, Arizona, United States. The population was 600 at the 2000 census. Peach Springs serves as the administrative headquarters of the Hualapai people, and is located on the Hualapai Reservation.-Geography:Peach Springs is located at ...
, Arizona.
Lasseter told film critic Joe Williams
Joe Williams (film critic)
Joe Williams is the film critic for the daily St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Web site STLtoday.com in St. Louis, Missouri. He has been a staff writer for the newspaper since 1996. From 2003-2006, he was the on-camera movie reviewer for St...
of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the Midwestern United States, and is available and read as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far south as...
that much of the story is based on the recollections of barber Angel Delgadillo in the Route 66 town of Seligman
Seligman, Arizona
Seligman is a census-designated place in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. The population was 456 at the 2000 census.-History:Between 1889-1891, Seligman was established by the Theut and Moultrie families. Both were prosperous slaughterhouse owners in Southern antebellum families who lost...
, Arizona, where business withered soon after the opening of I-40.
Willy's Butte resembles the landmark of Mexican Hat
Mexican Hat, Utah
Mexican Hat is a census-designated place on the San Juan River in south-central San Juan County, Utah, United States. Each year, on March 8 the town members meet to celebrate their CDP status. Town members wear hats, as the celebration takes place at the Mexican Hat Rock. It is on U.S...
, Utah, but also resembles a classic Pontiac
Pontiac
Pontiac was an automobile brand that was established in 1926 as a companion make for General Motors' Oakland. Quickly overtaking its parent in popularity, it supplanted the Oakland brand entirely by 1933 and, for most of its life, became a companion make for Chevrolet. Pontiac was sold in the...
hood ornament.
There is an "Ornament Valley" (a reference to Monument Valley
Monument Valley
Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching above the valley floor. It is located on the northern border of Arizona with southern Utah , near the Four Corners area...
).
The epilogue
Epilogue
An epilogue, epilog or afterword is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature or drama, usually used to bring closure to the work...
shows a map of the area of Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
around Radiator Springs, including car-related place names such as "Carburetor County" and "Cadillac Range". The latter is a north-to-south mountain range with many fin-backed jagged peaks, a reference to the famous Cadillac Ranch
Cadillac Ranch
Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation and sculpture in Amarillo, Texas, U.S. It was created in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, who were a part of the art group Ant Farm, and it consists of what were either older running used or junk Cadillac automobiles, representing a...
sculpture in Amarillo
Amarillo, Texas
Amarillo is the 14th-largest city, by population, in the state of Texas, the largest in the Texas Panhandle, and the seat of Potter County. A portion of the city extends into Randall County. The population was 190,695 at the 2010 census...
, Texas.
Lizzie's Curio Shop in Radiator Springs resembles the crazy Route 66 jumble of memorabilia and knick-knacks at Hackberry General Store in Hackberry, Arizona and the Sand Hills Curiosity Shop, aka the City Meat Market building in Erick
Erick, Oklahoma
Erick is a city in Beckham County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 1,052 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Erick is located at , elevation 2,060 feet ....
, Oklahoma.
The bridge that McQueen sees Sally driving on resembles several bridges on Route 66, including the Cyrus Avery
Cyrus Avery
Cyrus Stevens Avery was known as the "Father of Route 66". He created the route while a member of the federal board appointed to create the Federal Highway System, then pushed for the establishment of the U.S. Highway 66 Association to pave and promote the highway.-Early life and move to...
Route 66 Memorial Bridge in Tulsa, the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
, California, and the now-closed bridge over Diablo Canyon at Two Guns, Arizona.
Flo's V8 cafe is designed to look like a V8 engine
V8 engine
A V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of four cylinders, in most cases set at a right angle to each other but sometimes at a narrower angle, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft....
head on, with a circular air filter, tappet covers, spark plugs, pistons and connecting rods as the supports for the shelter. The blinking neon lights on the spark plugs blink in the firing order of a Ford flathead
Flathead engine
A flathead engine is an internal combustion engine with valves placed in the engine block beside the piston, instead of in the cylinder head, as in an overhead valve engine...
V8.
The railroad grade crossing at which Lightning McQueen outruns a passenger train on his way to Radiator Springs is protected by a pair of antique "upper-quadrant" wigwag
Wigwag (railroad)
Wigwag is the nickname given to a type of railroad grade crossing signal once common in North America, named for the pendulum-like motion it used to signal the approach of a train...
crossing signals which accurately depict those once made by the Magnetic Signal Company
Magnetic Signal Company
The Magnetic Signal Company of Los Angeles, California was the manufacturer of the ubiquitous "Magnetic Flagman" wig-wag railroad crossing signal seen all over California and the western states....
in both appearance and start-up. Few are left in actual operation in the United States, and many have been replaced with modern crossing gates, red lights and bells.
Continuity
During the closing credits, the characters are at a drive-in watching clips of the Pixar films "Toy Car Story" (Toy StoryToy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
), "Monster Trucks, Inc." (Monsters, Inc.
Monsters, Inc.
Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 American computer-animated film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, and written by Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett...
) and A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life is a 1998 American computer animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 25, 1998. A Bug's Life was the second Disney·Pixar feature film after Toy Story, and the third American computer-animated film after Toy...
, whose characters have been rendered as vehicles in the style of Cars.
There are a few sights of the front page of a newspaper named The Daily Exhaust.
Route 66
Many characters and places in the movie are directly inspired by real Route 66U.S. Route 66
U.S. Route 66 was a highway within the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926 -- with road signs erected the following year...
places and people.
To quote the Pixar crew:
- "As we traveled on Route 66, we were privileged to visit many places and to meet a number of people who live and work alongside 'The Mother Road.' The following is a list of the places and people we wanted to honor by including their names in our 'Special Thanks' credits at the end of the film.
Among the many references to Route 66 landmarks and personalities:
- The Cozy Cone Motel's design is based on the two Wigwam MotelWigwam MotelThe Wigwam Motels, also known as the "Wigwam Villages", is a motel chain in the United States in which the rooms are built in the form of teepees, hence the name "wigwam". It originally had seven different locations: two locations in Kentucky, a location in Alabama, another location in Florida, one...
s along Rt. 66, in HolbrookHolbrook, Arizona-Historical events:*During 1881 & 1882, railroad tracks were laid down and a railroad station was built. The community was then named Holbrook after the first engineer of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad...
, Arizona and RialtoRialto, California-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Rialto had a population of 99,171. The population density was 4,434.1 people per square mile . The racial makeup of Rialto was 43,592 White, 16,236 African American, 1,062 Native American, 2,258 Asian, 361 Pacific Islander, 30,993 from other...
, California. These were once two out of seven built motels, with individual cabins shaped like teepees. Three Wigwam Motels remain; the third (and oldest) is in Cave City, Kentucky, far from Route 66. The recently restored Tee Pee Motel in Wharton, Texas, south of Houston, is of similar design but unrelated. The name "Cozy Cone" was inspired by the Cozy Dog Drive-In of Springfield, Illinois, which lays claim to being birthplace of the corn dogCorn dogA corn dog is a hot dog sausage coated in a thick layer of cornmeal batter and deep fried in oil, although some are baked. Almost all corn dogs are served on wooden sticks, though some early versions had no stick.-History:...
. - The character "Fillmore", referring to the famous San Francisco music venue The FillmoreThe FillmoreThe Fillmore Auditorium is a historic music venue in San Francisco, California, made famous by Bill Graham. Named for its original location at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard, it lies on the boundary of the Western Addition and the Pacific Heights neighborhoods.In 1968,...
, was at one time to be named "Waldmire" after Bob WaldmireBob WaldmireBob Waldmire was an American artist who is well known for his artwork of U.S. Route 66. Being the son of Ed Waldmire Jr., he is often associated with the Cozy Dog Drive In restaurant in Springfield, Illinois Bob Waldmire (April 19, 1945–December 16, 2009) was an American artist who is well...
, a self-proclaimed hippieHippieThe hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
artist known to Rt. 66 fans for his detailed pen-and-ink maps and postcards of the route. Though Waldmire's family owns the Cozy Dog Drive-In, Bob, having since become a vegan, preferred not to see his name put on a character that would become a McDonald's Happy Meal toy. - Ramone's House of Body Art is based primarily on the U-Drop InnU-Drop InnThe U-Drop Inn, also known as Tower Station and U-Drop Inn and Tower Café, was built in 1936 in Shamrock, Texas along the historic Route 66 highway. Inspired by the image of a nail stuck in dirt, the building was designed by J.C. Berry...
in ShamrockShamrock, Texas-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 2,029 people, 852 households, and 550 families residing in the city. The population density was 979.7 people per square mile . There were 1,072 housing units at an average density of 517.6 per square mile...
, Texas. It opened in 1936 as Tower Conoco (from its distinctive Art DecoArt DecoArt deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
spire) with the U-Drop Inn Cafe and a retail building attached. Many other establishments built along Route 66 in its heyday had Art Deco elements that might be reflected in the design of Ramone's. - The yellow billboard for Lizzie's Curio Shop reading "HERE IT IS" with an image of a Model T is based on the Jack Rabbit Trading PostJack Rabbit Trading PostThe Jack Rabbit Trading Post is a convenience store and curio shop located on former U.S. Route 66, five miles west of Joseph City, Arizona city limits off of Exit 274 on Interstate 40. The trading post hails from Route 66's glory days, and is currently in operation...
signage in Joseph City, Arizona. - Sheriff is voiced by Michael WallisMichael WallisMichael Wallis is a journalist and popular historian of the Western United States. He has written seventeen books, including Route 66: The Mother Road, about the historic highway U.S. Route 66...
, an American historian and author of Route 66: The Mother Road.
Cameo
The group of small birds from the 2000 Pixar short film For the Birds made a cameo appearanceCameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
in Cars. As Mack is en route to California at 17:44 in the film, the group of small birds can briefly be seen (and heard) sitting on their familiar telephone wire. In addition, the Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story also makes a cameo outside of the race track, at the final race in the movie.
Soundtrack
The Cars soundtrackCars (soundtrack)
Cars is the original soundtrack album of the animated Pixar feature film of the same name. Nine songs from the soundtrack are from popular and contemporary artists. The styles of these songs vary between pop, blues, country and rock...
was released by Walt Disney Records
Walt Disney Records
Walt Disney Records is a family music record label owned by the Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Records was formed in 1956 as Disneyland Records. Before that time, Disney recordings were licensed out to a variety of other labels such as . It was Walt Disney’s brother Roy O...
on June 6, 2006. Nine tracks on the soundtrack are by popular artists, while the remaining eleven are score cues by Randy Newman
Randy Newman
Randall Stuart "Randy" Newman is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist who is known for his mordant pop songs and for film scores....
. It has two versions of the classic Bobby Troup
Bobby Troup
Robert William "Bobby" Troup Jr. was an American actor, jazz pianist and songwriter. He is best known for writing the popular standard " Route 66", and for his role as Dr...
jazz standard "Route 66
Route 66 (song)
" Route 66", often rendered simply as "Route 66", is a popular song and rhythm and blues standard, composed in 1946 by American songwriter Bobby Troup. It was first recorded in the same year by Nat King Cole, and was subsequently covered by many artists including Chuck Berry in 1961, The Rolling...
" (popularized by Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
), one by Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
and a new version recorded specifically for the film's credits performed by John Mayer
John Mayer (musician)
John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...
. Brad Paisley
Brad Paisley
Brad Douglas Paisley is an American singer-songwriter and musician. His style crosses between traditional country music and Southern rock, and his songs are frequently laced with humor and pop culture references....
contributed two of the nine tracks to the album, one being "Find Yourself" used for the end credits.
Release
Cars was originally going to be released on November 4, 2005, but on December 7, 2004 the movie's release date was changed to June 9, 2006. Analysts looked at the release date change as a sign from Pixar that they were preparing for the pending end of the Disney distribution contract by either preparing non-Disney materials to present to other studios, or they were buying time to see what happened with Michael Eisner's situation at Disney. When Jobs made the release date announcement, he stated that the reasoning was due to wanting to put all Pixar films on a Summer release schedule, with DVD sales occurring during the holiday shopping season.Critical reception
Cars opened on June 9, 2006 to generally positive reviews. William Arnold of the Seattle Post-IntelligencerSeattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
praised it as "one of Pixar's most imaginative and thoroughly appealing movies ever" and Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
called it "a work of American art as classic as it is modern."
Some critics expressed that Cars did not hold up to the standard of other Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
films due to its lengthy story, especially after the acclaim received by The Incredibles
The Incredibles
The Incredibles is a 2004 American computer-animated action-comedy superhero film about a family of superheroes who are forced to hide their powers. It was written and directed by Brad Bird, a former director and executive consultant of The Simpsons, and was produced by Pixar and distributed by...
, Pixar's previous film. "The movie is great to look at and a lot of fun," wrote critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, "but somehow lacks the extra push of the other Pixar films." Laura Clifford of website Reeling Reviews wrote that the film's "only real drawback is its failure to inspire awe with its visuals and to thoroughly transport with its storytelling.
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
gave Cars a fresh 74% (with an average of 6.9), yet no other Pixar film, until the release of Cars 2
Cars 2
Cars 2 is a 2011 American computer-animated action film produced by Pixar, and it is the sequel to the 2006 film, Cars. In the film, race car Lightning McQueen and tow truck Mater head to Japan and Europe to compete in the World Grand Prix, but Mater becomes sidetracked with international espionage...
, has ever scored less than 91%, but it still received a "Certified Fresh" rating, and it earned a 73/100 on Metacritic, both the second lowest attributed to a Pixar film.
Box office
In its opening weekend, Cars earned $60,119,509 in 3,985 theaters in the United States, ranking number one at the box office. In the United States, the film held onto the No.1 spot for two weeks before being surpassed by Click and then by Superman ReturnsSuperman Returns
Superman Returns is a 2006 superhero film directed by Bryan Singer. It is the fifth and final installment in the original Superman film series and serves as a alternate sequel to Superman and Superman II by ignoring the events of Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace .The film stars...
the following weekend. It went on to gross $461,981,604 worldwide (ranking number 6 in 2006 films) and $244,082,982 in the United States (the third highest-grossing film of 2006 in the country, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a 2006 adventure fantasy film and the second film of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, following Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl . It was directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and produced by...
and Night at the Museum
Night at the Museum
Night at the Museum is a 2006 fantasy adventure-comedy film based on the 1993 children's book The Night at the Museum by Milan Trenc. It follows a divorced father trying to settle down, impress his son, and find his destiny...
). It was the highest-grossing animated film of 2006 in the United States, but lost to Ice Age: The Meltdown
Ice Age: The Meltdown
Ice Age: The Meltdown, also known as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown or simply as Ice Age 2, is the 2006 sequel to the 2002 computer-animated film Ice Age. It was produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and premiered in Belgium on March 1, 2006...
in worldwide totals.
Awards
Cars had a highly successful run during the 2006 awards season. Many film critic associations such as the Broadcast Film Critics AssociationBroadcast Film Critics Association
The Broadcast Film Critics Association is the largest film critics organization in the United States and Canada , representing approximately 250 television, radio and online critics....
and the National Board of Review named it the best Animated Feature Film of 2006. Cars also received the title of Best Reviewed Animated Feature of 2006 from Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Randy Newman
Randy Newman
Randall Stuart "Randy" Newman is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist who is known for his mordant pop songs and for film scores....
and James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
received a Grammy Award for the song "Our Town," which later went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
(an award it lost to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
). The film also earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, but it lost to Happy Feet
Happy Feet
Happy Feet is a 2006 American-Australian computer-animated family film with music, directed and co-written by George Miller. It was produced at Sydney-based visual effects and animation studio Animal Logic for Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures and Kingdom Feature Productions and was released...
. Cars was also selected as the Favorite Family Movie at the 33rd People's Choice Awards
33rd People's Choice Awards
The 33rd People's Choice Awards, honoring the best in popular culture for 2006, were held on January 9, 2007 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California...
. Perhaps the most prestigious award that Cars received was the inaugural Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film
Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film
The Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film was awarded for the first time at the 64th Golden Globe Awards in 2007. It was the first time that the Golden Globe Awards had created a separate category for animated films since its establishment. The nominations are announced in January and...
. Cars also won the highest award for animation in 2006, the Best Animated Feature Annie Award.
The film was also nominated for AFI's 10 Top 10
AFI's 10 Top 10
AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
in the "Animation" genre.
Home media release
Cars was released on DVD in both wide-screen and full-screen editions on October 25, 2006 in Australia and New Zealand, on November 7, 2006 in the United States and Canada, and on November 27, 2006 in the United Kingdom. It includes DVD-exclusive short film Mater and the GhostlightMater and the Ghostlight
Mater and the Ghostlight is a 2006 Pixar computer-animated short created for the DVD of Cars, which was released on October 25, 2006 in Australia and in the United States on November 7, 2006...
and the film's theatrical short One Man Band
One Man Band (film)
One Man Band is a 2005 Pixar animated short film. The film made its world premiere at the 29th Annecy International Animated Film Festival in Annecy, France, and won the Platinum Grand Prize at the Future Film Festival in Bologna, Italy...
, as well as Inspiration for Cars, a 16 minute long documentary about Cars featuring John Lasseter
John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter is an American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering....
, the director. It also had a version of the Pixar short Boundin'
Boundin'
Boundin' is a 2003 Pixar short film, shown at the start of the film The Incredibles. The film was written, directed, narrated and featured the musical composition and performance of PIXAR animator Bud Luckey.-Plot:...
as an Easter Egg.
According to the Walt Disney Company, five million copies of the DVD were sold in the first two days it was available. In its first week it sold 6,250,856 units and 15,370,791 units in total ($246,198,859).
Unlike previous Pixar DVD releases, there is no two-disc special edition, and no plans to release one in the future. According to Sara Maher, DVD Production Manager at Pixar, John Lasseter and Pixar were preoccupied with productions like Ratatouille
Ratatouille (film)
Ratatouille is a 2007 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the eighth film produced by Pixar, and was directed by Brad Bird, who took over from Jan Pinkava in 2005...
. Additional extras not seen on the DVD have since been released on the official DVD website.
In the US and Canada, there were bonus discs available with the purchase of Cars at Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
and Target
Target Corporation
Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
. Wal-Mart featured a Geared-Up Bonus DVD Disc that focused on the music of the film, including the "Life Is A Highway" video, The Making of "Life Is A Highway", Cars: The Making of the Music, and Under The Hood (a special that originally aired on the ABC Family
ABC Family
ABC Family, stylized as abc family, is an American television network, owned by ABC Family Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company...
cable channel). Target's bonus was a Rev'd Up DVD Disc that featured material that was mostly already released as part of the official Cars podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
and focused on the inspiration and production of the movie.
Cars was also released on Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on November 6, 2007.
Similar films
Marcus Aurelius Canônico of Folha de S. PauloFolha de S. Paulo
Folha de S. Paulo, known simply as Folha , is a Brazilian daily newspaper founded and continuously published in São Paulo since 19 February 1921. Owned by the Frias de Oliveira family since 1962, it has Brazil's largest circulation since 1986. Alongside O Globo and O Estado de S...
described The Little Cars series (Os Carrinhos in Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
), a Brazilian computer graphics film series, as a derivative of Cars. Canônico discussed whether lawsuits from Pixar would appear. The Brazilian Ministry of Culture
Ministry of Culture (Brazil)
The Ministry of Culture of Brazil was created in 1985.-External links:*...
posted Marcus Aurelius Canônico's article on its website.
It has also been noted that the plot of Cars bears a striking resemblance to that of Doc Hollywood
Doc Hollywood
Doc Hollywood is a 1991 American romantic comedy film based on the book, What? Dead...Again?, by Neil B. Shulman, M.D. The film stars Michael J. Fox, Julie Warner, Woody Harrelson and Bridget Fonda. It was directed by Michael Caton-Jones. The filming took place in Micanopy, Florida.-Plot:Dr....
, the 1991 romantic comedy which stars Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian American actor, author, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...
as a hotshot young doctor, who, after causing a traffic accident in a small town, is sentenced to work at the town hospital, falls in love with a local law student and eventually acquires an appreciation for small town values.
Spin-off movie
A direct-to-video computer animated Cars spin-off titled Planes is in production at DisneyToon StudiosDisneyToon Studios
DisneyToon Studios is an American animation studio owned by The Walt Disney Company, responsible for producing direct-to-video and occasional theatrical films for Walt Disney Studios....
for a Spring 2013 release.