I wanted to call this a Fan Made post, and I suppose you can technically say artist Lou Romano is a "fan" of the designs he produces, but it's a weird line and so we're not attaching any labels. Romano, of course, is a member of the art department over at Pixar Studios, and over on his blog he's just thrown up a slew of early concept images for The Incredibles, Jack-Jack Attack and Mr. Incredible and Friends. Romano introduces the enormous set by saying they're "some other samples of Incredibles work I did between 2000-2004. Development/color styling/and dvd bonus materials." The image above (one of my personal favorites), he calls "more of a gag drawing."

The Incredibles happens to be right up there with my favorites of Pixar -- and with the popularity of superhero movies and the popularity of The Incredibles, I'm real surprised Pixar isn't looking to make a sequel -- and, instead, is churning out a Cars 2 and a Toy Story 3. Bogus, I say! Check out a few of Romano's images in the gallery below, then head over to his page to see a ton more. Would you be down for an Incredibles sequel? Or are you happy with more Cars and Toy Story?



[via Super Punch]

During a Disney showcase in Los Angeles this afternoon, a few fairly big announcements were made -- most notably the fact that Cars 2 is being bumped up from 2012 to the summer of 2011. John Lasseter also announced a series of animated shorts related to the Cars franchise called Cars Toons, and those will air on the Disney Channel, as well as (possibly) screen theatrically. With Toy Story 3 arriving in 2010, this means Pixar will shovel out back-to-back sequels for the first time ever. Those Pixar fans seeking an original product will get one next year with Up.

Also during the showcase, it was announced that Oprah Winfrey has joined the voice cast of The Princess and the Frog, where she'll play Eudora, the mother of the main character Princess Tiana (Anika Noni Rose). Due out on Christmas Day in 2009, The Princess and the Frog returns Disney to their classic 2D animation and it follows a young girl who lives in the New Orleans French Quarter during the Jazz Age. Princess and the Frog also marks the first time Disney has featured an African American princess.

We'll update this post should more info come out ...

Two weeks ago, we learned that Paul Newman has lung cancer (or may have lung cancer). And my first reaction was: will he still be able to do A Walk in the Woods with Robert Redford? Or whatever that long-ago confirmed final film is, if not that Bill Bryson adaptation? A couple years back the Oscar-winning actor said he's retiring after one "last hurrah," and it was speculated that he'd be re-teaming with Redford (his partner in both Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting). Unfortunately, the last we heard about A Walk in the Woods, there was no mention of Newman being involved.

Over at MTV Movies Blog, meanwhile, Shawn Adler's first thought was more like: "Is Cars really going to be his last acting role?" And thanks to MTV News, he somewhat received the answer. Apparently, the fine folks at Pixar (who are releasing their latest, Wall-E, this Friday) are including Newman's character, "Doc Hudson", in the script for Cars 2, which is set to hit theaters in 2012. Cars co-writer/director John Lasseter says they're "just waiting to see" if Newman will be able to reprise the role. If Newman can't do it, though, the sequel will be doubly sad, since it will also be missing Joe Ranft, who co-wrote, co-directed and voiced two characters in the first movie. The longtime Pixar collaborator died tragically in a car accident the year before Cars came out.

Would you still want Doc to appear in Cars 2 if not voiced by Newman?

To go along with their recent announcement, Disney/Pixar have released a bunch of promo images for all of their upcoming projects, including WALL-E (June 27, 2008), Bolt (November 26, 2008), Up (May 29, 2008), The Princess and the Frog (Christmas 2009), Toy Story 3 (June 18, 2010), Rapunzel (Christmas 2010), Newt (Summer 2011), The Bear and the Bow (Christmas 2011), Cars 2 (Summer 2012) and King of the Elves (Christmas 2012). In between all of these new releases, Disney/Pixar will re-release Toy Story (October 2, 2009) and Toy Story 2 (February 12, 2010) in 3-D.

For more on this announcement, as well as additional information on each of these films (casts, plots, directors, etc), check out our original post over here. To take a look at all these images, head to the gallery featured below.

Which film are you anticipating the most? Should they even make a sequel to Cars? Talk amongst yourselves ...