Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
NASCAR goes Hollywood!
No longer content to watch its cars race around a track or turn up only on ESPN’s Sports Center and other news shows, NASCAR is turning to Hollywood.
NASCAR, the U.S. auto racing association formed in 1948, has teamed up with Tinseltown Toons to produce an animated family film tentatively called “NASCAR: The Secret Life of Cars.”
Everybody wants to be in the movie business, right? So, why not NASCAR.
The film, which is aimed at home entertainment audiences and scheduled for release on DVD, is expected to be completed in 2011 and will tell what happens in a NASCAR garage when humans leave and cars come to life, according to a press release. And if it could be as big a hit as “Cars” or “Transformers” then it may be that NASCAR will be in the movie biz for years to come.
It’s not the first time race cars will be featured in an animated film, not by a long shot. Nor, for that matter, will it be the first time cars have been at the center of a movie. Can anyone say Disney/Pixar’s “Cars”? How about “Transformers”? Both were huge hits. “Cars” hauled in $462 million at worldwide box offices, and “Transformers” earned $708 million. Still, it marks one more expansion for the race car circuit that in recent years has been growing.
