My beloved Pixar just released the first trailer for their animated blockbuster of 2011, Cars 2.
I've already told everyone I know my extreme disappointment with this. First up, I'm very upset with the whole "animated films as franchises" concept. That largely stems from the fact that Shrek 2 was the first movie I found so terrible that I wanted to throw things at the screen. And lets face it, DreamWorks is really running the "animated film as franchise" concept into the ground. We've had a total of four Shreks with a prequel in development, and we're getting Madagascar 3, Kung Fu Panda 2, and How to Train Another Dragon. So I don't like how Pixar seems to be following this formula right now, with Toy Story 3 this year, Cars 2 next year, and Monsters, Inc 2 in 2012.
And secondly, out of all of Pixars films, why the hell did Cars 2 demand a sequel? It is on record as Pixar's worst reviewed and lowest grossing movie. (Bear in mind, with Pixar, "worst reviewed" tends to mean it only got 3.5 out of 4 instead of a full 4, so Pixar on a bad day is still pretty good. Argh! I'm a Pixar apologist!) Well, actually, I think another blogger hit it on the head. Despite low grosses and lukewarm reviews, Cars is Pixar's #1 film...in terms of merchandise sales. Every little boy goes through a phase where they're all about Hot Wheels, and the Cars franchise ties into that quite nicely.
The plot has our hero of the first film, Lightening McQueen (once again voiced by Owen Wilson) participating in a series of races around the world. Meanwhile, his faithful sidekick Mater (once again voiced by Larry the Cable Guy) gets mistaken for a secret agent and gets embroiled in all kinds of espionage adventures.
The director is longtime animated film producer Brad Lewis, who's last production was Pixar's Ratatouille. Cars/Toy Story/A Bug's Life director/head of Disney animation John Lasseter is co-directing. It hits theatres June 24.
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