Coming Soon has an exclusive interview with Disney-Pixar Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter about the development and plot of “Cars 2”. He also talks about the upcoming “Cars Land” at Disney’s California Adventure.

When talking about the villain Big Oil, Lasseter says the inspiration for the character came from current events. “I kept thinking to myself that, in a world where cars are alive and there are no humans, what would be a great bad guy? I kept going back to Big Oil…I just kept thinking how great it would be to have Big Oil be the bad guy wrapped up in trying to discredit alternative fuel. That sort of became this thing from the rising cost of gasoline. You go, ‘why is it rising so much? What’s the real story going on?’ It just seems like there are so many conspiracy theories wrapped around all of that. The grip they have on everybody because the world is all driven by oil. So I said, ‘Okay, that’s kind of cool.'”

He went on to say that despite the villain being Big Oil, the movie isn’t supposed to be a message film. “I just love taking things and going, ‘Oh! That’s kind of familiar to the audience.’ It just makes the world a little more believable. It’s not topical, but it’s believable.”

To read more about what Lasseter said about the film, go to Coming Soon.