It will be feature length, but it won’t be coming to a theater near you as DisneyToon Studios announced today Planes, described as a spectacular, full-length CG animated comedy action adventure drawing inspiration from Cars. The film is set to arrive on Blu-ray and DVD in Spring 2013 and will introduce an entirely original and hilarious crew of daredevils from every corner of the globe.
This isn’t the first we’ve heard of the project as Movieline reported on it back in July of 2010 saying it would be a “semi-sequel and spin-off franchise to Cars, one meant to take advantage of the enormously lucrative direct-to-video market.” The one problem with Movieline’s report was they assumed it would be a Pixar picture, but instead it is a DisneyToon feature, something Bleeding Cool also mentioned back in July 2010. And this news makes a lot of sense given the massive success of the three Tinkerbell direct-to-video features with the fourth, Tinker Bell and the Mysterious Winter Woods, set to hit shelves this year.
John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, was quoted in the press release saying, “We had such a great time exploring the world of Cars over the course of two films, so it seemed only natural for us to see where our imaginations would take us in a film where planes were the main characters. By expanding the Cars world, Planes gave us a whole new set of fun-filled situations and a great opportunity to introduce some fantastic new characters.”
Planes takes off with an international cast of the fastest air racers around, in a comedy packed with action and adventure starring Dusty, a small town dreamer who longs to enter the most epic around-the-world air race … despite his fear of heights. With the help and support of a fleet of new and hilarious characters, Dusty wings his way into the biggest challenge of his life.
Cars 2 hits theaters on June 24 and features its own plane as Jason Isaacs voices the spy jet Siddeley. It sounds like that character won’t be part of the Planes feature.
