Lasseter: 'Cars 2 is a great spy movie'

John Lasseter has said that the upcoming Cars sequel is not intended to spoof espionage films, but instead be "a great spy movie" in its own right.

Lasseter, the director behind the 2006 Pixar film, revealed that Cars 2 character Finn McMissile - an Aston Martin voiced by Sir Michael Caine - was initially developed for an unused sequence in the first movie.

He said: "Sally and Lightning McQueen originally went on a date in a drive-in movie theatre. We needed a movie playing up on the screen, so we thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to do a spy movie in the Cars world?' We came up with this great character, a British secret agent car called Finn McMissile.

"This is not a parody of a spy movie. This is a spy movie. This is a great spy movie: it has phenomenal action and great new characters. It's fantastic."

Lasseter added that one of his favourite new characters in Cars 2 is the Italian race car Francesco Bernoulli, voiced by John Turturro.

"He is one of the best-looking cars in the world, one of the fastest cars in the world. He will tell you that himself. He is so completely full of himself," Lasseter commented.

Cars 2 centres on Lightning McQueen entering a World Grand Prix and getting drawn into an espionage conspiracy. The animation opens on June 24 in the US and July 22 in the UK.