High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Cars is the second franchise created by Pixar and distributed by Disney, after Toy Story. Cars was released on June 9, 2006, and Cars 2 was released on June 24, 2011. Both films were directed by John Lasseter, the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios. Cars is considered to be Pixar`s "anniversary" franchise as both films marked Pixar`s 20th and 25th anniversaries respectively. Together the two films have received over $1 billion in box office revenue worldwide.