Disney/Pixar sure know how to make money, and I can’t blame them. I can’t decide if the largest reason for them to create Cars 2 was for its huge merchandise sales, or for the opening of Cars Land at Disney’s California Adventure next year.
In the five years since its 2006 release, “Cars” has generated global retail sales approaching $10 billion, according to Disney.
No fewer than 300 toys €” and countless other items, including bedding, backpacks and SpaghettiOs €” are rolling out in stores, in anticipation of the “Cars 2” opening.
Cars 2 has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 35%, which normally has a pretty good comparison to what i think of a movie, but I was surprisingly happy with the movie, but i’ll have another post about all the movies i watched in a few days. I really thought going in that i was either going to be bored or pissed off by the over marketing and maybe because i had such low expectations that it had no where to go but up.
All my friends have 3/4 year old boys in the household so of course they were all about the first Cars movie, each owning their own Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater toys, and knowing the all the words to the movie. We all got tickets to see it at The El Capitan (buying tickets on Gold Star for $14/adult) and got to enter the Cars 2 experience in the back lot of Hollywood High School.
The playground was very Disney-esque. and all the kids were going crazy with all the things to do and all the characters available for pictures. There were plenty of things to do that will have you easily spend 2 hours outside and enough stuff to keep the adults entertained as well.
I especially liked the build your own Lego car and race down a track, but as cool as my car looked it crashed and burned halfway down the track.
Green screen pictures which you get the FULL size resolutions available for download for FREE! There are 4 themes to choose from, and looking back we probably should have gotten a few more taken.
An obstacle course for kids and adults, that can be really tricky for the shorter kids who can’t reach the peddles or don’t know how to actually ride a bike yet.
On top of those there was tire playground for the kids to run around and be kids. A high carpet slide to go down, an Peterson Auto Museum exhibit, bungee cord jumping thing, and some arts and crafts area to let the kids get messy. It was well worth the extra costs for going to the El Capitan to see the movie.
