Pixar Head Honcho John Lasseter on Vanity Fair New Establishment List

John Lasseter, the creative genius behind Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, has been honoured by Vanity Fair as one of the most influential people in the world. The Pixar CCO is ranked at number 8 on the Vanity Fair New Establishment List, one above Lady GaGa.

Sharing the top ten spots with Lasseter are Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerbeg (#1), Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (#2) and representetives of Amazon (#3),  Apple (#4), Twitter (#5) and more.

Ranked above such huge public figures as J.K. Rowling and Tim Burton, this is certainly a huge honour for the director of Toy Story.

Via The Pixar Blog and The Pixar Times.

Planes Voice Cast Increases



The Pixar Blog tells us that Disney announced at the D23 expo today that Jon Cryer, famous as Alan from Two and a Half Men, will lend his voice to the Disneytoon Studios Cars spin-off, Planes, as the main character, Dusty.

The film, whilst not created by Pixar, is a spin-off from Pixar's Cars franchise and is due for a 2013 straight-to-DVD and Blu Ray release. Cryer joins Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond) on the film.

I'm Back - A Collection of Things You May Have Missed

Apologies for the hiatus, I've been on holiday for the past few weeks, so - while I have been able to keep up to date on the latest animation news - I have been unable to post about the large slab of news that has been coming out (thankfully, though, I am back in time to cover all that happens at D23, starting today). So, to avoid spamming you with post after post, I'm compiling all of the news over the past couple of weeks into one big post here for you.

Firstly, news surfaced over a week ago (via The Hollywood Reporter and Box Office Mojo) that we can expect another Pixar film in 2014. Following only a few weeks after the announcement of a, as of yet unnamed, new Pixar feature coming on November 27, 2013, we were told that the 2013 film would be an original concept, so not a sequel; no such thing has been said of this 2014 release, giving credibility to the belief that this 2014 film could be the rumoured Toy Story 4.

Pixar, seemingly, are being a lot more secretive with their upcoming slate as of late, announcing less details about further off films, this could likely be to avoid another scenario like what we saw with Newt, where early announcements led to Pixar losing some face by having to cancel the project due to perceived similarities with Rio and Alpha & Omega. But we may get details on this, and the 2013 film, from D23.

This new Pixar film is scheduled for release on May 30, 2014.

But that's only a little bit of the news that I haven't covered over the past few weeks, read the rest after the jump break.

New Pixar Film Coming 2013

The Pixar Blog is reporting (courtesy of Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood) that an "original" Pixar film, ergo "not a sequel" is due out on November 27, 2013. There's no details on the film's title, theme or anything else for that matter. However, it is very likely that this is the project that Pete Docter is working on (after wrapping up Up - no pun intended - in 2009.

Also, as The Pixar Blog points out, and as I am inclined to agree, that this could be the Dinosaur film that has been setting the Pixar fan forums ablaze since hints at it were glimpsed way back in 2009.

Anything from Pixar is brilliant, however, a dinosaur film from the acclaimed Emeryville studio would be fantastic, and I absolutely love all of Pete Docter's work.

Regardless of the fact that we know nothing about it, I am already immensely excited at the possibilities. Although, since Monsters University is now due out in 2013, I find it likely that this anonymous film will be eventually delayed until 2014.

More La Luna Details Emerge

Yesterday, details emerged on a brand new Pixar short, La Luna, set to debut later this year at the Annecy Film Festival and today yet more details emerge.

Firstly, we have the very simple yet effective looking title card for the short (above). As I said yesterday, I really like the look of the short and this title fits with what I've seen so far and just looks generally great.

Joining director Enrico Casarosa at the helm is Kevin Reher, as producer, who previously produced Partly Cloudy and Day & Night. It is a very solid sounding team at the top of this project and La Luna looks set to be a great addition to the already fantastic Pixar animated short film canon.

Finally, La Luna is set to have a running time of 6:53, which Mike of The Pixar Blog reliably informs us is Pixar's longest short film by almost a minute, adding to the feel of a "fable" that it is touted to be.

The short sounds great and could easily be the one we see attached to Brave in 2012.

More Newt Concept Art

Following the very public cancellation of Pixar's Newt last year, we were treated to a large amount of beautiful concept art for the film, as anyone who frequents the blog will know, this was the Pixar film I was most looking forward to and I was very disappointed by its cancellation. However, we have just been treated to a new batch of concept artwork for the film and its characters (courtesy of The German Pixar Blog) by Pixar artist, Jason Deamer (above and below).

Needless to say, the artwork looks fantastic!

Newest Cars 2 Character: Rip Clutchgoneski



Today we were treated to yet another Cars 2 Character (as the Pixar Blog points out, this is the tenth week of the character rollouts) and now we have Rip Clutchgoneski (that's a mouthful).

Disney's official description says Rip originates from the newly independent European "Republic of New Rearendia", who are "desperate to put their name on the map."

"After putting together a remarkable string of qualifying races, Rip’s entry into the World Grand Prix is clearly the Cinderella story of the competition."

 

Stay tuned for more characters as June (July here in the UK) and Cars 2's release drives ever closer!

New Cars 2 Image - Arrivals

Courtesy of Stitch Kingdom and The Pixar Blog we have a new picture from Pixar's upcoming animated sequel, Cars 2. The picture appears to be Lightning McQueen, Mater, Luigi, Guido, Filmore and Sarge (presumably Lightning's Pit Crew) getting off the plane after travelling to the World Grand Prix.

Not long now until we can see the full film, roll on July.

John Lasseter Cars 2 Cameo

Disney and Pixar have just revealed (courtesy of Mike at The Pixar Blog) a brand new Cars 2 Character, John Lassetire! Based on Pixar head honcho and Cars 2 director, John Lasseter, the car is described as a "hefty", all-American, yellow pick-up truck.

Lasseter is said to be thrilled with the honour and said the following:

"It was news to me. I did not know about that, so I was a little surprised. I ended up voicing this character. It was just one line, but now I have a Cars character. I'm very excited about that."

Congrats to John on his first role in a Pixar movie, in contrast all other Pixar directors have already voiced a character (Pete Docter was Kevin in Up, Andrew Stanton was Crush in Finding Nemo, Brad Bird was Edna Mode in The Incredibles and Lee Unkrich was the Jack in a Box in Toy Story 3).

Kind of makes you want to see Cars 2 even more, doesn't it?

Update

My mistake, John was in 2 previous Pixar films: A Bug’s Life (Harry the Mosquito) and Toy Story 2 (Blue Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot). 

Toy Story 3, New For Your Consideration Ad

Over the past few weeks as the Toy Story 3 Best Picture push gathered steam, we've seen several For Your Consideration Ads for Pixar's 11th feature - which you can see here, here and here - previous ads spoofed past winners such as Shakespeare in Love and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. This new ad spoofs James Cameron's award winning and several billion dollar grossing Blockbuster Titanic.

The ad was originally seen in Variety on December 13th, and is now online (above).

Whilst I think the ad is really good and a great idea, I think the text colour - in this case - is quite poor and difficult to read. Nonetheless TS3 has my vote.

Thanks to The Pixar Blog for alerting me to this.

Michael Caine in Cars 2

According to The Pixar Blog, a trusted Pixar source says that British Acting Legend, Sir Michael Caine is the voice of Cars 2 character Finn McMissile.
No official confirmation from Pixar or Disney as of yet.