It’s officially official: Disney’s Cars spinoff Planes is getting a theatrical release after all.  Though the film was initially set for a direct-to-DVD release, hints started surfacing this past summer that Disney was considering releasing the film theatrically instead, as John Lasseter had grown particularly fond of the pic.  Today, Disney announced that Planes will indeed open in theaters on August 9, 2013.  That puts it opposite Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi film Elysium and the Jennifer Aniston/Jason Sudeikis comedy We’re the Millers.As one can surmise, Planes takes place in Cars' terrifying world of anthropomorphic vehicles and centers on an eclectic international cast of the aerial variety.  The story focuses on Dusty, “a small town dreamer who longs to enter the most epic around-the-world air race… despite his fear of heights.”  Essentially it’s a cross between Cars and the atrocious Cars 2, but with planes.  The film is not, however, being produced by Pixar.