Pixar's Cars 2 NOT Pushed Back To December 2011

Update: Disney says that the ComingSoon report is false and that the film will come out in Summer 2011 as originally scheduled.

The Walt Disney Company revealed during their first quarter earnings call yesterday that Pixar's Cars 2 has been pushed back to a December 2011 release. This si the third release date change for the Cars sequel. The film was originally announced with a 2012 date, which was changed to June 24th 2011, and now it is being pushed back to December 2010. Disney had originally planned to release their first fairy tale story, The Bear and the Bow, in December 2011. So I assume that Bow has been moved back to sometime in 2012.

The June 24th release date was a tough spot, stuck between Green Lantern which gets released the week before and Michael Bay's Transformers 3, which has a tentative release the week following. This leaves the 24th completely open which means one of two possibilities — either Disney is planning to move another film into the Summer slot (Could The Bear and the Bow be ready for Summer? I doubt it... How about Tron Legacy?) or the studio has completely abandoned the slot, allowing another film to move in (likely Transformers a week early).

John Lasseter came up with the idea for Cars 2 while traveling the world doing publicity for the original movie. He wondered what the characters of Cars would think about all these different locales, with the weird traffic situations and strange foreign automobiles. The sequel will follow Mater the tow truck who gets his passport and takes a worldwide trip with Lightning McQueen.

The lead characters this time around still seem to Lightning McQueen and Mater, the tow truck voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, with new addition Finn McMissile, an Aston Martin smooth-looking James Bond-type. The story is also said to have a North by Northwest set up with Mater caught up in "Hitchcockian case of mistaken identity" and "embroiled in a huge spy thriller" though, as expected, nobody believes him. Brad Lewis is making his directorial debut with the film.

source: ComingSoon