'Toy Story' Creator Lasseter Gears Up for Animated 'Cars'

NEWSFLASH: John Lasseter likes Disney..which is nice, since he's in charge of a lot of it now. He also likes cars, which is also nice, since he just directed a movie about them.
LAS VEGAS (AP) – John Lasseter's latest flick combines his two lifelong loves:
The animated and automotive worlds. The director of the "Toy Story" movies and "A Bug's Life" and a prime creator behind "Monsters, Inc.", "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles," Lasseter returns with "Cars," the animated story of a haughty race car that gets a lesson on life in the slow lane. For Lasseter – who premiered the film Tuesday night at ShoWest, an annual theater owners convention – “Cars" rolled off the assembly line of his childhood. His mom was an art teacher whose work helped forge his early fascination with animation, while his dad ran the parts department at a Chevrolet dealership in Whittier, Calif., where Lasseter worked weekends growing up in the heyday of muscular Camaros and Corvettes. "I've always loved cars," Lasseter, 49, told The Associated Press. "I'm a gear-head and wanted to do a film about cars, like putting the two sides of my life, my two loves, together." "Cars" also is a reflection of the real-life lessons he learned about making time for family and friends amid his professional success. After a hectic run making "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life" and "Toy Story 2," a time when he and his wife also had four sons, Lasseter decided to pull over for a rest stop. Lasseter's wife warned him that if he kept up the work pace, he would wake up one day realizing their boys had all gone off to college and he had missed their childhood. So Lasseter figured it was time for a summer road trip, just him and the family. "We got so close as a family. We loved every single minute of it, and I came back from that journey and I knew what I wanted this movie to be about. It's about a character that learns the journey in life is the reward," said Lasseter, the key creative force behind Pixar Animation, which is being acquired by its longtime distribution partner Disney. "Cars" debuts in theaters June 9. The ShoWest screening also featured a showing of Pixar's Oscar-nominated short film "One Man Band" and a trailer for the company's next computer-animated flick, 2007's "Ratatouille," about a gourmand rat seeking fine eats in Paris.
Once Disney's buyout of Pixar is completed, Lasseter will become chief creative officer for animation at both companies and principal creative adviser for Walt Disney Imagineering, which designs the company's theme-park attractions. Lasseter said he and Ed Catmull, the Pixar executive who will be president of the companies' combined animation studios, plan to split their time between Disney in Burbank and Pixar in Northern California. The change marks a homecoming for Lasseter, who caught the animation bug in his youth from the classic cartoons Walt Disney created. At the California Institute for the Arts, where he earned a film degree, Lasseter studied under former Disney artists and worked as an animator for Disney early in his career. "I've got Disney blood in my veins," Lasseter said. "Walt Disney is the reason I do what I do. I believe so strongly in making what he believed in, which is making family films that are not just for kids. They're for everybody, and that's one of the things I'm so incredibly proud of in the track record at Pixar. We're so proud because all the family loves these things. Even teenagers and young adults who don't have kids love our films. That's the testament, and that's what I believe Walt Disney always believed in, too."