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Disney's Cars 3 Live-Action Mini-Series Reimagines Race Cars as Runners
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
The lack of humans in the world of Pixar's Cars films is perplexing to some fans. Much of the world, including its vehicles, seems to be made for humans, and yet they are mysteriously absent. Disney's Japan branch came up with a partial solution: transform the cars into human track-and-field athletes. Apart from the choice to morph already anthropomorphized cars into humans, the films' scenario perhaps raises fewer questions when set in a realistic human world.
Disney is producing the live-action Runners/Crossroad mini-series inspired by the Cars 3 film, known as Cars/Crossroad in Japan. Shūhei Nomura (live-action Chihayafuru: Kami no Ku's Taichi Mashima, Typhoon Noruda's Shūichi Azuma) stars as Raito Makui, the human version of the Cars films' protagonist Lightning McQueen. Miku Uehara plays Mirei Kurusu, a reimagining of McQueen's trainer Cruz Ramirez in the American animated film. Ryō Tanaka plays Tsutomu Arashiyama, the runner version of the film's Jackson Storm.
Raito is a track star, and the newcomer Tsutomu appears as a threat. Raito has to stay on his feet as his life comes to a crossroads. Similarly in Cars 3, Lightning McQueen is getting older, and he has to rebuild his career after a bad crash involving a new and advanced race car.
The mini-series is still in production, and Disney will reveal its release window later. Cars 3 will open in Japan on July 15. The film opened in North America on June 16.
Disney and Pixar's Cars 2 film used the Japanese electronic pop trio Perfume's song "Polyrhythm" worldwide. Cars premiered in 2006, followed by Cars 2 in 2011.
Source: Eiga Natalie via Hachima Kikō
