USAToday.com helps crank up the hype for Pixar Animation Studios‘ upcoming Route 66 movie, “Cars.”
First is an interview with “Cars” writer and director John Lasseter, the first since the Disney/Pixar merger last month.
Tuesday, Cars will preview at ShoWest, the yearly Las Vegas convention of theater owners, who are starved for an injection of Pixar fuel to jump-start box-office receipts after last year’s attendance decline.
The Capra-esque automotive fantasy about a hot-rod racer who learns how to pull over and smell the exhaust fumes feeds into the filmmaker’s interest in NASCAR and appreciation for older models. The son of a parts manager at a Chevy dealership nearly swoons when he mentions his “pride and joy” — a 1952 Jaguar XK120. “Gorgeous, gorgeous,” he says, while caressing his toy version.
The yarn also dips into the history of how the interstate highway system snuffed out small towns that once boomed with tourists who got their kicks on Route 66.
But, like all Pixar movies, Cars carries plenty of personal baggage, too. “John’s DNA is in every scene,” producer Darla K. Anderson says.
The main source of inspiration was a cross-country road trip he and wife Nancy took with their brood in 2000. He had been working 10 years straight with barely a break when she warned him, ” ‘You’d better be careful because one day you will wake up, and all your boys will be going off to college, and you will have missed it.’ I heard her loud and clear,” he says.
When he got home, he knew what the story of Cars would be: “A character who relearns that the journey in life is its own reward.”
USAToday.com also interviewed Paul Newman, one of the voices for Pixar’s upcoming Route 66 movie, “Cars.”
… Newman, who saw a screening of Cars last week, gives it a thumbs up. “Well, I’m delighted. It’s quite an extraordinary film from the standpoint of character and fun of story.”
“Cars” will open wide in theater June 9.