Disney have struck gold with Cars - while the franchise may not be a hit with critics everywhere, kids (and a lot of others fans too) love it, and, in terms of merchandise alone, it makes a killing. As such, it's a logical, and very Disney, step to make a direct-to-video follow up. Said direct-to-video follow up though - in the spirit of Pixar's Toy Story 2 before it - is now going to be released theatrically, as Planes will soar onto screens this summer.
Last month we heard that Dane Cook (Employee of the Month) had signed on to replace Jon Cryer as the film's lead voice. Now, USA Today has details on who will be joining Cook above the world of Cars in August - they also unveiled a glut of accompanying character posters for the film.
The film features a Top Gun reunion, as Val Kilmer and Anthony Edwards, who played Iceman and Goose respectively in the Tom Cruise-flick, are set to voice a duo of F-18 jets, Bravo and Echo. Stacy Keach (Chelsea's dad in Two and a Half Men) voices Skipper, "a reclusive old Navy Corsair", who seems to be the Doc Hudson to Dusty's Lightning McQueen, described as "the old grouchy guy". Cedric the Entertainer (Madagascar) is set to voice Mater-type, Leadbottom.
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| Mater? |
Other voice talent for the film includes Teri Hatcher (Coraline) as Dottie and Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond) as Mater-lookalike, Chug. Roger Craig Smith (vocie of Sonic the Hedgehog; Captain America in Ultimate Spider-Man) voices the villainous Ripslinger, Gabriel Iglesias voices his stooges, Ned and Zed. Carlos Alazraqui voices lucha-libre plane, El Chupacabra; Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Maggie Lizer from Arrested Development) voices "no-nonsense" Rochelle, who 'El Chu' quickly falls for. Bollywood's Priyanka Chopra voices Ishani, Sinbad voicer Roper and ESPN's Colin Cowherd voices Colin Cowling, a blimp. Helping round out the quite impressive voice cast is comedy-legend, John Cleese, as Brit-racer Bulldog.
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| I wonder who the bad guys are? |
The site also grabbed a few words from Pixar and Disney CCO John Lasseter, for whom Cars is a passion project:
"I always felt every vehicle in the world of Cars is a character, and I love the idea of airplanes because you get off the ground and can take people places they have never seen. There's so much potential."
On the reasoning behind the transition from straight-to-DVD to a a wide release, Planes director Klay Hall said:
"I think we got into this world and really saw how epic it could be. It kind of just happened. It's worked out best for everyone," adding that they've avoided the usually-predictable love interest route, saying "Dusty doesn't fall in love. I didn't go there. That's not to say that doesn't happen sometime down the road. But right now, he's living his dream."
Head on over to the USA Today post to check out all the details and quotes in full. You know what, I've not been very excited for Planes, but this latest batch of characters, these quotations and some of the voice cast attached, have actually got me pretty optimistic about it. Planes opens in the US on 9th August and in the UK a week later, on the 16th.
Spinoff? More like ripoff! And Skipper is from Pixar's "Air Mater" short! I think it's ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI think this could be a fun movie. Not a Pixar level quality film (by the way, I can't wait for the moment when it's released to hear people say it's a Pixar film), but not as bad as everyone think it will be.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, you know that's coming "As if Cars 2 and Brave weren't bad enough, Planes is proof Pixar sucks! I mean, Wreck-It Ralph and Rise of the Guardians were good, but Pixar's really off their game this year!". Smh.
ReplyDeleteShould be fun!
Well, it is a sanctioned spin-off, the Pixar team have signed off on it! The point of Air Mater was actually just to link in to Planes - just wait for the inevitable Cars cameos in Planes 2!
ReplyDeleteI'm not really excited about this one. For me is still a quick cash grab. The animation is nice but I still just see it as a DTV film. That does not mean it will be a bad film but could it compete with the other theatrical offerings? I doubt it. And I know TS 2 began as a DTV film but come on, is TS! There's no point comparing the two and TS 2 was done by Pixar, the best animation studios nowadays and Planes is being done by DisneyToon Studio which is hit or miss most of the time. So yeah, I'm not holding my breath for this one.
ReplyDeleteAnd God, I hope people know that this film is NOT done by Pixar and start whining about it, it will be like when people thought (and some still think) that The Wild was done by Disney Animation.
I don't think this is a very Disney thing to do. In my opinion, Walt would have wanted the Disney company to come up with their own ideas, not copy and paste someone else's hard work.
ReplyDeleteI agree about your last paragraph. If people really know who Pixar is, they won't think it's Pixar.
ReplyDeleteDisney as in The Walt Disney Company, not as in Walt Disney, the man.
ReplyDeleteHmm, still not entirely sold on this one. A lot of the planes and visuals are undeniably cool, but I just can't help feel that this is nothing but a cheap cash grab. And the fact that most people won't bother to pay attention to the fact that this is NOT a Pixar production. Heck, it's not even a Disney Animation Studios production, it's a DisneyToon Studios production. Maybe if Pixar were co-producing it with them I wouldn't be so skeptical. But who knows, it could turn out to be one of those movies that come out and really surprise you. I originally thought Madagascar 3 was going to be dreadful and I ended up enjoying the heck out of it.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to hear the director say that Dusty won't have a love interest, because when I first saw that Rochelle character, I thought, "Oh boy, here we go...he falls for the pretty little airplane who is clearly not interested in him, then at the end of the movie proves his skills and gains her affection". At least they're not going down that route.
Like I said, this could still turn out to be pretty decent.
Couldn't Pixar Canada have done this?
ReplyDeleteAlso The Clone Wars got the after-thought Theatrtical release and look how that went. Just because it's slightly above Video or TV quality doesn't mean it deserves a theartical release.
And Toy Story 2 is the exception as Pixar recognised how bad it was, scrapped it, and then basically started again from scratch.
I hope this is good though just because people will judge Pixar for this when really this is just Disney and Lasseter
Y'know, a week ago, I would've fully agreed with you. But all the promotional material released in the last week has actually kind of grabbed my attention. The trailer Disney rolled out (and then almost immediately) removed last month was actually pretty good too.
ReplyDeleteYeah though, I really hope it is clearly stressed that this is *not* a Pixar film!
As for the love interest, I thought exactly the same thing! Nice to see they're not shoving all the clichés in.
Sorry. I'm not exactly understanding your point in that last comment...
ReplyDeleteIt's okay. I agree with you on that. In my opinion, the Disney company is becoming less like it was when Walt Disney was alive, and more how whoever the head of the company is now wants it to be. I'm not a huge fan of Disney (company) anymore... except the theme parks!
ReplyDelete