Lasseter Talks Cars 2

September 14, 2009 by Brendan
Filed under: Movie News

Cars

At the D23 Expo in Anaheim, Disney President John Lasseter, who directed the first Cars movie, took the stage and talked at great length about Cars 2. ComingSoon.net wrote an extensive report on his revelations and I am going to post some of the highlights. I could just put it in my own words but I doubt I could say it any better than they did:

[The movie] will reunite the cast of the 2006 hit, taking Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and friends on an international road trip.

Concept art was shown of the locations that McQueen will visit in his world tour, all decked out with automobile-inspired variations of the real world (the Eiffel tower has a wheel design at the base, Big Ben is called “Big Bentley”). The locations (which seem to be in the same order they appear in the story) included Tokyo, Japan, Black Forest, Germany, an unknown Oktoberfest town (where Lasseter showed an image of Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) wearing “mater-hosen”), Porto Corsa, Italy, Paris, France and London, England.

Also introduced was a new character, Fin McMissle, a James Bond-inspired secret agent who appears in the form of a gadget-riddled Aston Martin. One of the plot lines apparently involves Mater saving Fin’s life and being mistaken for a secret agent himself, pursued around the world in a Hitchcockian “wrong man” scenario. No voice actor was announced for the role but the part seems to be screaming for Sean Connery to come out of retirement.

Other concepts that Lasseter promised for the film involve Mater learning to drive on the opposite side of the road in Europe, adventures on the Autobahn, troubles in Parisian roundabouts and scooters in Italy (which, he explained, are like gnats to the cars).

Sad that Paul Newman isn’t around to reprise his role as Doc Hudson. I wonder if they will put the character to rest or have someone else voice it. It won’t be the same without Paul’s voice…

Cars 2 is scheduled to be in theatres on July 24, 2011.