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Boy-friendly ‘Cars’ now has a role model for girls

AFTER years of being a movie series geared toward boys, Pixar’s “Cars” franchise fi nally has a wonder woman with some drive.

With the addition of Cruz Ramirez (voiced by Cristela Alonzo), the animation studio is shifting gears to appeal more broadly with “Cars 3” in U.S. theaters Friday.

“Girls want to see someone who looks like them, doing the thing they’re interested in,” says director Brian Fee. “I have two daughters, 8 and 11, and I’m seeing the world through their eyes. I didn’t want this movie to not be for them.”

Cruz is a young trainer hired to whip Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) back into racing shape, calling the older vehicle her “senior project.” But as the two run through driving drills on a sandy beach and survive an insane demolition derby, Cruz reveals to Lightning that she, too, has dreams of being a racer.

“They learn from each other,” Alonzo says. “We don’t point

out that she’s female or a Latina car. We base everything she does on how well she does the work, and that’s a very simple thing to teach kids: If you like something and you really want to do it, if you work hard you can accomplish it.”

Disney/Pixar animation chief John Lasseter acknowledges that fi lmmakers didn’t want “Cars 3” to be “a glass-ceiling story (where) they want to do it but the world prevented them from doing it.” Instead, Pixar went for the female-empowerment angle, which Alonzo appreciated.

“It wasn’t the ‘Girls rule, boys drool’ kind of thing, where I’m like, ‘What does that even mean’?” she says. “How about saying everybody can do it if they want to do it? I love Cruz because of that.”

In early versions of the script, Cruz was male before fi lmmakers started “looking for ways to make it richer and have the movie say something more,” Fee says. After Alonzo was cast, they began pull-ing from the actress’ life growing

Gosling launches production companyRYAN GOSLING and producer Ken Kao have teamed up to form production company Arcana. The banner will focus on fi nding and developing a wide range of unique and diverse materials for fi lm and television.

Arcana’s fi rst offi cial project is director Yorgos Lanthimos’ upcoming movie “The Favorite,” starring Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman. The biographical historical fi lm, which just wrapped principal photography in Britain, fol-lows the clandestine personal and political machinations of the reign of Queen Anne, the last monarch of the House of Stuarts. Arcana has partnered with producers Ceci Dempsey for Scarlet Films and Ed Guiney and Lee Magiday for Element

Pictures, together with Film4 and Fox Searchlight.

Gosling and Kao previously worked together on Shane Black’s detective thriller “The Nice Guys” and Terrence Malick’s “Song to Song.” The pair also previously announced the acquisition of Jeff Lemire’s acclaimed graphic novel “The Underwater Welder,” which they are developing for the big

screen alongside Anonymous Content.

Gosling most recently earned an Oscar nomination for best actor for his performance in Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land” and is set to star in Chazelle’s upcoming “First Man” for Uni-versal. The actor will next be seen alongside Harrison Ford in Denis Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049,” which is due in theaters in October.

Kao will continue to run his Waypoint Entertainment with partner Alex Walton. Kao’s production slate includes: Scott Cooper’s “Hostiles,” starring Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike; Martin Zandvliet’s “The Outsider,” starring Jared Leto; and Destin Daniel Cretton’s “The Glass Castle,” starring Naomi Watts. (SD-Agencies)

BRUCE DERN and Dakota John-son are joining Shia LaBeouf in “The Peanut Butter Falcon.”

Tyler Nilson and Mike Schwartz wrote and will direct the story about a crab fi sher-man as he embarks on a journey to get a young man with Down syndrome to a professional wresting school in rural North Carolina and away from the retirement home where he’s

lived most of his life.Newcomer Zachary Gottsa-

gen, who is the inspiration for the fi lm, will play the principal character of Zak.

Dern was a part of the ensem-ble in Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight.” Johnson is set to star opposite Tilda Swinton and Chloe Moretz in the ballerina drama “Suspiria.”

(SD-Agencies)

Dern, Johnson joining in ‘Peanut Butter Falcon’

up in the Texas border town of San Juan and wanting to be a standup comedian.

Cruz gives a speech about being told to dream small, and it comes directly from Alonzo’s childhood: “My family always taught me to be present and not think too far ahead,” she says. “They always wanted to protect me, so I wouldn’t have my heart broken if my dream didn’t come true.”

It’s not all instant girl power, though. Cruz has long ques-tioned her ability to be a real racer, and Alonzo “knows what it’s like to not have the con-fi dence,” she says. Yet Cruz’s dream becomes more of a reality when she starts beating Lightning in practice. “Even when she has doubts about cer-tain parts of her life, she knows she’s very good at other parts of her life,” Alonzo adds. “And I

think we all can relate to that.”Lasseter says “Cars” was never

intended to be seen as a franchise for boys, though he recalls that his wife rolled her eyes and told him, “Now, don’t just make this for you and all your car-guy friends” when the fi rst fi lm was underway. Fee is aware of its reputation but also proud to have a character like Cruz as a role model for his daughters.

(SD-Agencies)

PHARRELL WILLIAMS has unveiled the new track “There’s Something Special,” one of fi ve songs he’s contributed to the soundtrack for upcoming movie “Despicable Me 3.”

The musician’s songs for previ-ous installments of the kids’ fi lm franchise include the mega-hit “Happy,” which served as the lead single for “Despicable Me 2.” “There’s Something Special” is a slower, soul-styled track

than the aforementioned disco hit, featuring Pharrell singing lyrics such as “There’s something special on the other side of this moment/ And it’s about what you and I decide.”

The artist previously released his “Despicable Me 3” track “Yellow Light.” Together, those two songs plus three others will be released as part of the soundtrack album June 23.

(SD-Agencies)

Pharrell shares new ‘Despicable Me 3’ track

“Cars 3”“Cars 3”

Cristela AlonzoCristela Alonzo

Bruce DernBruce Dern Dakota JohnsonDakota Johnson

Ryan GoslingRyan Gosling