Baby, you can drive Disney/Pixar's 'Cars'
By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY
Moviegoers will get their first Cars ride this weekend.
A teaser trailer for what likely will be the final Disney/Pixar computer-animated comedy will be featured before their latest collaboration, The Incredibles, opening Friday.
Hoping to parlay the public's growing appetite for auto racing, Cars features the voices of track aficionado Paul Newman, who continues to compete at age 79, and NASCAR great Richard Petty.
Cars isn't due in theaters until November 2005, and production won't finish until next summer. But the studios hope to rev up the early word for the first feature directed by Pixar co-founder and Incredibles executive producer John Lasseter since 1999's Toy Story 2.
The movie centers on speed-obsessed race car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), who gets lost on his way to the track. He lands in Radiator Springs, a downtrodden town off fabled Route 66 that has been bypassed by the interstate. There, he learns about what really matters from the cars of the 1950s and '60s.
Increasingly sophisticated computer technology provides Cars with unparalleled animation, Lasseter says. "The level of detail, the patina on the road, the peeling paint, the dirt — everything looks so real," he says.
Cars' four-year production cycle is a slow cruise for Wilson. Unlike his live-action movies, Cars is more assembly-line process, geared to the meticulous production schedule of animators.
"You'll go in every few months for four or five hours," says Wilson, 35. "You'll roll through 40 pages of dialogue, doing it over until you get it right."
Wilson also appears as Bill Murray's estranged son in December's widely anticipated The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Wilson has done animated voice-over work before, but his character in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove in 2000 was eliminated after the project's initial director was replaced.
"I was a little insecure about my voice after that," Wilson says.
Cars is expected to be the last of seven animated Pixar efforts distributed by Disney since the two companies parted ways. Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo's worldwide box office total is $2.6 billion.
http://images.usatoday.com/life/_photos/2004/11/03/inside-cars.jpg
Trailer cruises in with The Incredibles: Lighting McQueen, shown here, is voiced by Owen Wilson
By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY
Moviegoers will get their first Cars ride this weekend.
A teaser trailer for what likely will be the final Disney/Pixar computer-animated comedy will be featured before their latest collaboration, The Incredibles, opening Friday.
Hoping to parlay the public's growing appetite for auto racing, Cars features the voices of track aficionado Paul Newman, who continues to compete at age 79, and NASCAR great Richard Petty.
Cars isn't due in theaters until November 2005, and production won't finish until next summer. But the studios hope to rev up the early word for the first feature directed by Pixar co-founder and Incredibles executive producer John Lasseter since 1999's Toy Story 2.
The movie centers on speed-obsessed race car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), who gets lost on his way to the track. He lands in Radiator Springs, a downtrodden town off fabled Route 66 that has been bypassed by the interstate. There, he learns about what really matters from the cars of the 1950s and '60s.
Increasingly sophisticated computer technology provides Cars with unparalleled animation, Lasseter says. "The level of detail, the patina on the road, the peeling paint, the dirt — everything looks so real," he says.
Cars' four-year production cycle is a slow cruise for Wilson. Unlike his live-action movies, Cars is more assembly-line process, geared to the meticulous production schedule of animators.
"You'll go in every few months for four or five hours," says Wilson, 35. "You'll roll through 40 pages of dialogue, doing it over until you get it right."
Wilson also appears as Bill Murray's estranged son in December's widely anticipated The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Wilson has done animated voice-over work before, but his character in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove in 2000 was eliminated after the project's initial director was replaced.
"I was a little insecure about my voice after that," Wilson says.
Cars is expected to be the last of seven animated Pixar efforts distributed by Disney since the two companies parted ways. Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo's worldwide box office total is $2.6 billion.
http://images.usatoday.com/life/_photos/2004/11/03/inside-cars.jpg
Trailer cruises in with The Incredibles: Lighting McQueen, shown here, is voiced by Owen Wilson
