In a 2014 interview with Grantland, Seltzer and former creative partner Jason Friedberg revealed that after performing rewrites on
Maximum Risk (1996), they sold an animated film to Disney that "turned into Cars," followed by an adaptation of the 1999 novel Little Green Men. According to production notes for their film
Scary Movie (2000), a project titled Motor Mouths was written the same year as the original novel's release. Little Green Men's film rights were being bid over by New Line Cinema in 1998, who had continued developing the film by 2000 with the duo's involvement, according to news reports during this era and the Scary Movie press kit. The year dates and immediate follow-up suggest Motor Mouths was Friedberg and Seltzer's animated pitch, which already referenced a vehicular synonym in its name. On Seltzer's official website, he lists Pixar Animation Studios, the studio that produced
Cars (2006), as one of his clients.
