Just as he had done on Toy Story 2, Lasseter inserted himself as director. Eventually it would be announced that Brad Lewis, an animation veteran who had produced Ratatouille for Pixar, was stepping down as the director of Cars 2. In 2010, word trickled out that the sequel was having massive story issues and that Lasseter was spending more time at Pixar than he was at Disney.
The synergy was almost overwhelming.īut speedbumps were ahead. This new land would now open in 2012, around the same time (originally) that Cars 2 would hit theaters. But Lasseter prompted the Imagineers to make the entire land centered around Cars. Originally, a space at this new version of DCA had been a Cars Land, themed to Route 66, with attractions based on The Love Bug, the classic 1950s car culture of California, and, of course, Pixar’s Cars.
When Disney had purchased Pixar, they had installed John Lasseter as principal creative advisor to Walt Disney Imagineering, the division of the company responsible for the theme parks and cruise line. Also, in 2007, Disney had announced an unprecedented move: they were going to attempt to “fix” Disney California Adventure, the second gate in Anaheim, next door to Disneyland. Pixar needed to prove its box office powers as much as its artistic ambitions, which meant sequels to some of its most popular films, including Monsters, Inc., Toy Story and, of course, Cars. It also needed to happen for another reason: by the time Cars 2 was put into production, Disney had outright purchased Pixar for $7.4 billion. No – a sequel needed to happen because toys needed to be sold. A sequel to Cars wasn’t something that people were crying out for and their wasn’t a creative imperative to further explore the adventures of Lightning McQueen, Mater and the rest of the Radiator Springs gang. By 2011, just before the release of Cars 2, The Hollywood Reporter ran a story about how the merchandise brought in more than $2 billion globally every year and had just crossed the $8 billion line in total. Even without overt placement of the characters in Disney Parks or on Disney-owned television networks (again, given the tenuous relationship between Pixar and Disney), it managed to be a powerhouse. The film itself had strong ties with the lucrative world of NASCAR racing, with many figures from the sport appearing in the film in cars-ized versions of themselves, including Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip and Charlotte Motor Speedway owner Humpy Wheeler, making it an attractive property for children’s NASCAR-loving parents.
The other thing available for Christmas? Everything else.Īlmost from the word “go,” Cars, a sweet little movie Lasseter claimed was inspired by the breezy fantasy of Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki, was a merchandising juggernaut. Press speculated it had to do with the fraying relationship between Pixar owner Steve Jobs and Disney CEO Michael Eisner, but Jobs said that he wanted all foreseeable Pixar movies to come out in the summer so the DVDs (then a lucrative part of the business) could be available for Christmas. Originally scheduled for a Thanksgiving 2005 slot, it was moved to summer 2006. Lasseter loved the idea and quickly put it into development, but the studio got swamped with Toy Story 2 shortly after A Bug’s Life and several other projects that pushed what would eventually be Cars to the backburner.
At the time the story was an ugly duckling tale about an electric vehicle picked on in a world full of gas-guzzling cars. Cars began life in 1998, when, towards the end of production on A Bug’s Life, animator and writer Jørgen Klubien showed John Lasseter his script for a project he called The Yellow Car.