This year’s D23 should have seen the return of the multiple-time Piston Cup winner, Lightning McQueen, as Disney accidentally revealed Cars 4 was once part of the event’s line-up. It’s been seven years since the word “Kachow!” was blasted from theater speakers in Cars 3, and like all great Disney Pixar movies, fans want more.
Thanks to an official survey on the D23 website (via @HollywoodHandle on X), fans now know that Cars 4 could be in development. The survey asked fans which project they’re most looking forward to at the Disney-centric convention. Surprisingly, Cars 4 was listed among the movies. Cars 4 hasn’t officially been announced by Disney or Pixar, and some audiences believed Cars 3 was the definitive end to the franchise. It is now expected that Disney will announce the fourth installment very soon to get ahead of the leak.
Cars 3, directed by Brian Fee, saw Lightning McQueen seemingly retire from racing to train a new protégé, Cruz Ramirez, understanding he’s getting too old for professional racing. Coming off the back of the divisive Cars 2, the third installment was already facing an uphill battle. Cars 3 bombed at the box office, which many assumed was the final nail in the franchise’s future. But, with seven years to recover and train, Lightning McQueen might not be ready to retire his racing wheels. If Cars 4 is announced soon by Disney, it is expected that McQueen will be preparing for one last race before finally calling it quits, for good this time.
Cars Is One of Disney’s Weirdest Franchises
The premise of sentient cars living in their own society is something that a lot of motor-obsessed kids have dreamed of. As a result, the first Cars movie was a major critical and commercial success for Disney, and introduced the two most iconic four-wheeled characters in animation: Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and Tow Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). The franchise has had one of Disney’s rockiest runs at the box office, with financial returns gradually decreasing with each outing. However, it’s not just the financials that make Cars such a weird franchise.
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Firstly, the theme of the second movie feels strangely out of place in the trilogy. Cars focused on Lightning McQueen’s training to bounce back and win the Piston Cup, and Cars 3 let McQueen pass the proverbial headlights to the next generation of racers. But Cars 2 saw McQueen and Mater join a spy agency to take down an evil oil conglomerate who were secretly assassinating cars when a new form of eco-friendly fuel was created for an international race circuit. Cars 2 felt like it was written by your cousin who watched way too many James Bond movies, way too young.
Secondly, there is the increasingly strange lore surrounding the Cars universe. Setting aside the questions about Cars anatomy (mainly caused by the flashing headlights in the first movie), the existence of a WWII Jeep car means there was a Second World War in the world of Cars. Was there a Cars Hitler? And why do buses exist if there are no people? Are some cars forced into jobs based purely on their appearance? It sounds ridiculous, but these are the questions the internet has been fascinated by since the first movie released in 2006.
- Release Date
- June 16, 2017
- Director
- Brian Fee
- Cast
- Owen Wilson , Bonnie Hunt , Armie Hammer , Lea DeLaria , Nathan Fillion , Kerry Washington , Cheech Marin , Cristela Alonzo , Chris Cooper , Larry the Cable Guy , Margo Martindale , Tony Shalhoub , Jenifer Lewis
- Runtime
- 109minutes