KA-CHOW!
It has been 11 years since Disney Pixar Cars raced across screens and into our hearts. Now the third installment of the Cars series will debut in theaters nationwide on June 16th 2017. Of course in the interim, Cars 2 debuted in 2011 and was racier and edgier than the original. I am happy to report that Cars 3 veers back towards the original Cars movie with a nostalgic music score and heartfelt story line. We were invited to a screening of the film in preparation for the press conference, all opinions are our own.
Lightning McQueen made his rookie debut in “Cars” in 2006 and now more than a decade has passed since he was a KA-CHOW young superstar. Blindsided by a new generation of blazing-fast racers, the legendary Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) is suddenly pushed out of the sport he loves. To get back in the game, he will need the help of an eager young race trainer, Cruz Ramirez (voice of Cristela Alonzo), along with inspiration from the late Fabulous Hudson Hornet. Proving that #95 isn’t through yet will test the heart of a champion on Piston Cup Racing’s biggest stage.
The Future is Female
Cars 3 makes a strong attempt to address non-conformity issues while delicately addressing the changing Nascar environment. Where Nascar has been a white-male lead sport, more female drivers, trainers and staff are slowly making their way up the ranks to where soon enough females will take the lead.
Audiences are introduced to female Cruz Ramirez in Cars 3. Tasked with getting Lightning McQueen back on track after another devastating setback, Cruz isn’t shy. Her training style is high-tech, enthusiastic and steadfast and she’s not afraid to apply a little tough love. But there’s more to Cruz than meets the eye. The movie isn’t just about Lightning McQueen it’s Cruz’s story, in many ways.
The Old Man
In Cars 3, Lightening McQueen is struggling with the kind of issues a lot of athletes face later in their careers. Do you go out on top or fight until the end?
We loved the film, I dare to say that I love it even more than the first Cars installment. I appreciate the direction that Disney and Pixar is going because I’m totally following!
Cars 3 Fun Facts
- Lightning McQueen sports five distinct looks in “Cars 3,” including one that
pays homage to his original pait, a primer look he gets following the
devastating crash, a custom wrap ordered by Sterling, and more. - Filmmakers added four characters to the film that were inspired by real
NASCAR legends, Junior Johnson, Louise Smith, Wendell Scott, and
Henry “Smokey” Yunick. - While the clouds library for “Cars 3” features thousands of cloud pieces, 85
percent of the clouds in “Cars 3” came from the cloud library for “The Good
Dinosaur.” - Artists designed and built eight race tracks for the film: Los Angeles
International Speedway, Copper Canyon Speedway (Arizona), Heartland
Motor Speedway (Iowa), Motor Speedway of the South, Thunder Hollow
Dirt Track, Thomasville Speedway, Georgia Super Speedway, Florida
International Super Speedway. - Five key areas in the southeast U.S. were visited to research the history of
stock-car racing as well as the look and feel of racing in the area. Among
these areas are Charlotte, North Carolina, where filmmakers spent time at
the NASCAR museum, the Charlotte Motor Speedway, the Hendrick
Motorsport facility, consultant Ray Evernham’s garage and voice talent
Humpy Wheeler’s house; North Wilkesboro Speedway; Occoneechee
State Park and Speedway; Daytona, where they saw the Daytona
Superspeedway, Daytona Beach (where early races took place), Daytona
500 Museum; and the Sonoma Speedway, where filmmakers were invited
to ride along with professional racecar drivers. - “Cars 3” gets dirty, really dirty. And it turns out, dirt—particularly mud—isn’t
easy to get right in an animated feature. Artists and technicians teamed up
to get the look just right—not too thick, not too thin—which was important
because mud, splatters, dust, sand and sacred dirt appear in 616 shots. - Cruz Ramirez is a key character with a compelling and emotional story. In
order to give her a dynamic range of motion and expressions, character
riggers gave Cruz a total of 656 controls, including 360 for her body and
296 for her face—the mouth, lips, teeth and tongue have 216 controls
alone. - The render farm being utilized to render “Cars 3” runs more than 60,000
cores. Memory has been upgraded recently, bringing the average per core
to 10 gigabytes, compared to the 4 gigabytes per core recently used for
“Inside Out”.
Cars 3 is in theaters nationwide June 16th 2017
