Cars

Cars is a 2006 American computer-animated road-comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed and co-written by John Lasseter from a screenplay by Dan Fogelman, it was Pixar's final independently produced film before its purchase by Disney in January 2006. Set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic talking cars and other vehicles, the film stars the voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman (in his final acting role), Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, Michael Wallis, George Carlin, Paul Dooley, Jenifer Lewis, Guido Quaroni, Michael Keaton, Katherine Helmond, John Ratzenberger and Richard Petty. Race car drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Mario Andretti, Michael Schumacher and car enthusiast Jay Leno (as "Jay Limo") voice themselves.

Cars premiered on May 26, 2006 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina and was theatrically released in the United States on June 9, 2006 to critical and commercial success, grossing $462 million worldwide against a budget of $120 million. It was nominated for two Academy Awards including Best Animated Feature, but lost to Happy Feet (but won both the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature and the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film). The film was released on DVD on November 7, 2006 and on Blu-ray in 2007. The film was accompanied by the short One Man Band for its theatrical and home media releases. Merchandise based on the film (including scale models of several of the cars) broke records for retail sales of merchandise based on a Disney/Pixar film, bringing an estimated $10 billion for 5 years after the film's release. The film was dedicated to Joe Ranft, the film's co-director and co-writer, who died in a car crash during the film's production.

A sequel titled Cars 2 was released on June 24, 2011 and a spin-off film titled Planes, produced by Disneytoon Studios, was released on August 9, 2013, which was followed by its own sequel Planes: Fire & Rescue, which was released on July 18, 2014. A series of short animated films titled Cars Toons debuted in 2008 on Disney Channel and Disney XD. A second sequel titled Cars 3 was released on June 16, 2017.

Plot
In a world populated by anthropomorphic talking vehicles, the final race of the Piston Cup season ends in a three-way tie between retiring veteran Strip "The King" Weathers, frequent runner-up Chick Hicks, and brash rookie sensation Lightning McQueen; the tiebreaker race is scheduled for one week later at the Los Angeles International Speedway. Lightning is desperate to win the race, not only to be the first rookie to win the Piston Cup, but also because it would allow him to leave the unglamorous sponsorship of Rust-Eze, a bumper ointment company, and take The King's place on the prestigious and lucrative Dinoco team. Eager to get to California as soon as possible, he pushes his big rig, Mack, to travel all night long. While Lightning is sleeping, Mack nods off and is startled awake, causing Lightning to fall out the back of the trailer and onto the road. Lightning wakes up in the middle of traffic and speeds off the highway in search of Mack, but instead ends up in the rundown desert town of Radiator Springs, where he inadvertently damages the pavement of the main road.

The next day, Lightning is ordered by the town judge, Doc Hudson, to leave town immediately, but the local lawyer, Sally, requests that Lightning should instead be assigned community service to repave the road, to which Doc reluctantly agrees. Still in a rush to leave town, Lightning repaves the road shoddily, and is ordered to repave it again. During this time, he begins to warm to the town, and befriends several of its residents. He learns that Radiator Springs was once a popular stop along U.S. Route 66 until it was bypassed with the construction of the Interstate System and mostly forgotten, and that Doc was a famous three-time Piston Cup winner whose career ended prematurely from a serious crash. He bonds with Sally, who found happiness when she gave up a fast life in LA to live in Radiator Springs, and now dreams of putting the town back on the map. Lightning finishes repaving the road, reinvigorating the town's residents, and decides to spend an extra day in Radiator Springs with his new friends, but his time there is cut short when Mack and the media descend on the town. Lightning reluctantly leaves to reach California in time for the race while Sally chastises Doc upon discovering that he was responsible for tipping off the media to Lightning's whereabouts.

At the race, Lightning races distractedly and soon falls into last place. He is then surprised to discover that Doc, having a change of heart, has taken over as his crew chief and several of his other friends from Radiator Springs are helping in the pit. Inspired and recalling tricks he learned from Doc and his friends, Lightning quickly emerges to lead the race into the final laps, but at the last minute, Chick, refusing to lose to The King again, sideswipes and sends The King into a dangerous crash. Recalling Doc's fate, Lightning stops just short of the finish line, allowing Chick to win, and drives back to push The King over the finish line. As a result, the angered crowd and media condemn Chick's victory while also praising Lightning's sportsmanship. Lightning is offered the Dinoco sponsorship, but declines and insists on staying with Rust-Eze out of loyalty for their past support. Back at Radiator Springs, Lightning reunites with Sally and announces that he will be setting up his racing headquarters there, putting Radiator Springs back on the map.

Development
The genesis of the film came in 1998 as Pixar began wrapping up production on A Bug's Life. At that time, Jorgen Klubien began writing a new script called The Yellow Car, which was about an electric car living in a gas-guzzling world inspired by The Ugly Duckling, an idea triggered by the poor reception his fellow countrymen gave the Mini-El car.[16] Some of the original drawings and characters were developed in 1998 and the producers agreed that Cars could be the next Pixar film after A Bug's Life and be released in early 1999, particularly around June 4. However, the idea was scrapped in favor of Toy Story 2. Later, production resumed with major script changes, like giving Mater, Doc and a few other characters bigger parts.

John Lasseter said that inspiration for the film's story came after he took a cross-country road trip with his wife and five sons in 2000. When he returned to the studio after vacation, he contacted Michael Wallis, a Route 66 historian. Wallis then led eleven Pixar animators in rented white Cadillacs on two different road trips across the route to research the film.[18][19][20] In 2001, the film's working title was Route 66 (after U.S. Route 66), but in April 2002, the title was changed to Cars in order to avoid confusion with the 1960s television series of the same name. In addition, Lightning McQueen's racing number was originally going to be 57 (a reference to 1957, Lasseter's birth year), but was changed to 95 (a reference to 1995, the year Pixar's first film Toy Story was released).

In 2006, Lasseter spoke about the inspiration for the film, saying: "I have always loved cars. In one vein, I have Disney blood, and in the other, there's motor oil. The notion of combining these two great passions in my life—cars and animation—was irresistible. When Joe (Ranft) and I first started talking about this film in 1998, we knew we wanted to do something with cars as characters. Around that same time, we watched a documentary called 'Divided Highways,' which dealt with the interstate highway and how it affected the small towns along the way. We were so moved by it and began thinking about what it must have been like in these small towns that got bypassed. That's when we started really researching Route 66, but we still hadn't quite figured out what the story for the film was going to be. I used to travel that highway with my family as a child when we visited our family in St. Louis."

Years later in 2013, Klubien said the film was both his best and most bitter experience because he was fired before it premiered and because he feels Lasseter wrote him out of the story of how the film got made.

Soundtrack
The Cars soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on June 6, 2006. Nine tracks on the soundtrack are by popular artists, while the remaining eleven are score cues by Randy Newman. It has two versions of the classic Bobby Troup jazz standard "Route 66" (popularized by Nat King Cole), one by Chuck Berry and a new version recorded specifically for the film's credits performed by John Mayer. Brad Paisley contributed two of the nine tracks to the album, one being "Find Yourself" used for the end credits.
 * Main article: Cars (soundtrack)

Release
Cars was originally going to be released on November 4, 2005, but on December 7, 2004, its release date was moved to June 9, 2006. Analysts looked at the release date change as a sign from Pixar that they were preparing for the pending end of the Disney distribution contract by either preparing non-Disney materials to present to other studios or they were buying time to see what happened with Michael Eisner's situation at Disney. When Pixar's chief executive Steve Jobs made the release date announcement, he stated that the reasoning was due to wanting to put all Pixar films on a summer release schedule with DVD sales occurring during the holiday shopping season.

Marketing
McDonald's promoted the film with a set of 10 happy meal toys featuring the characters from the film.

State Farm promoted the film for its new Cars mechandise.

The film was backed by a large marketing campaign, with toys, books, games, clothes, and many other items becoming available throughout 2006 and again in 2011 with the release of Cars 2.

Trailers TV spots began to air between February and June of 2006.
 * The film's first teaser trailer was released on November 5, 2004, and was later shown in theaters in front of The Incredibles, The Polar Express, The SpongeBob SqaurePants Movie, National Treasure, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Zina and the Vivid Crew, Pooh's Heffalump Movie, The Pacifier, Robots, Ice Princess, Madagascar, Wondercolts, M.I.S.S.I.O.N., Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sky High, Valiant, Corpse Bride, and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
 * Another teaser trailer was released on November 4, 2005, and was later released with Chicken Little, Zathura: A Space Adventure, Yours, Mine, & Ours, Metro Cone, MYCUN: The Movie, Jose Maldonaldo: World Tour, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Marcus Troy and the Kingdom of the Crown.
 * The first theatrical trailer was released on December 27, 2005 which was attached to the Toy Story 2: Special Edition DVD and was shown in front of other films like Hoodwinked!, Roving Mars, Glory Road, Curious George, Eight Below, and Doogal.
 * The second theatrical trailer was was released on March 9, 2006 and was shown with The Shaggy Dog, Ice Age: The Meltdown, The Wild, RV, and Stick It.
 * The third and final theatrical trailer was released on May 10, 2006 and was shown before Beastz, Over the Hedge, and X-Men: The Last Stand.

Home media
Cars was released on DVD, in wide- and full-screen editions, on November 7, 2006 in the United States and Canada. This DVD was also released on October 25, 2006 in Australia and New Zealand and on November 27, 2006 in the United Kingdom. The release includes the DVD-exclusive short film Mater and the Ghostlight and the film's theatrical short One Man Band as well as a 16-minute-long documentary about the film entitled Inspiration for Cars, which features director John Lasseter.[28] A limited run on VHS was distributed to members of Disney's home video clubs.

According to the Walt Disney Company, five million copies of the DVD were sold the first two days it was available.[30] The first week, it sold 6,250,856 units and 15,370,791 in total ($246,198,859).[31] Unlike previous Pixar DVD releases, there is no two-disc special edition, and no plans to release one in the future. According to Sara Maher, DVD Production Manager at Pixar, John Lasseter and Pixar were preoccupied with productions like Ratatouille.[32]

In the US and Canada, there were bonus discs available with the purchase of the film at Wal-Mart and at Target.[33] The former featured a Geared-Up Bonus DVD Disc that focused on the music of the film, including the music video to "Life Is A Highway", The Making of "Life Is A Highway", Cars: The Making of the Music, and Under The Hood, a special that originally aired on the ABC Family cable channel.[34] The latter's bonus was a Rev'd Up DVD Disc that featured material mostly already released as part of the official Cars podcast and focused on the inspiration and production of the movie.[35]

Cars was also released on Blu-ray Disc on November 6, 2007, one year after the DVD release. It was the first Pixar film to be released on Blu-ray (alongside Ratatouille and Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume 1),[36] and was re-released as a Blu-Ray Disc and DVD combo pack and DVD only edition in April 2011. The film was released for the first time in 3D on October 29, 2013, as part of Cars: Ultimate Collector's Edition, which included the releases on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, and DVD.[37]

Cars was released on 4K Blu-Ray on September 10, 2019.