Although Pixar has previously expressed concerns about making straight-to-DVD releases (part of the reason the company briefly split with Disney before the Mouse House bought them was over Disney’s plans to make straight-to-DVD sequels to Pixar movie, whether John Lasseter and co. wanted them to or not), it seems they’ve changed their mind and are developing a propery called Planes, which Movieline describes as a semi-sequel and spinoff franchise to Cars, one meant to take advantage of the enormously lucrative direct-to-video market.”
There’s little info on the project at the moment, as its still in its early days and Pixar is known to spend a long time developing things.
While some have expressed surprise that Pixar would enter the straight-to-DVD market and that they’d do it with a spin-off to Cars – which many consider to be a minor Pixar movie – neither is really that shocking. Pixar’s objections to previous straight-to-DVD sequels/spin-offs has always been to do with quality, rather than an inherent dislike of the format, so if they feel they can do Planes well, there’s nothing to stop them.
It’ also makes sense to do it with Cars. Despite having a lower critical reputation than many Pixar movies, Cars is actually one of their most profitable films, and they’ve sold more merchandise linked to the movie than any of their other properties (it was the first Pixar property to pass a billion in merchandising revenue alone). As a result, a Planes straight-to-DVD movie wouldn’t just generate revenue as a film, but would also set up a potentially insanely lucrative merchandising line. And at the end of the day, Pixar is a business that is there to make money.
We may like to think the Toy Story company is on some higher plane than others, but actually it’s more that they do what many others try to do, but they do it better.