NEXT-GEN TAKES THE LEAD – Jackson Storm (voice of Armie Hammer), a frontrunner in the next generation of racers, posts speeds that even Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) hasn’t seen.

I’m still surprised at just how much I’m interested in watching Cars 3, all thanks to that unexpectedly dark teaser trailer. The story of an older Lighting McQueen no longer being the face, the golden boy, the número uno of the racing world is so interesting. In life, we see our favorite athletes reach a point where their bodies can no longer produce at a championship level. As they change, so does the game, with the entering of younger, fresher athletes. That’s what Cars 3 will be about:

“McQueen is not the young hotshot anymore, the kid he was back then in Cars 1. He’s in the middle of his life, and as an athlete, that’s getting up there. You have your whole life ahead of you, yet your career is starting to show its age. He’s looking in the mirror and realizing, ‘I’m 40 years old,’ and dealing with the fact that the thing that you love more than anything else, you might not be able to do forever.”

Owen Wilson returns as Lighting McQueen. His younger, faster rival is newcomer Jackson Storm, who is voiced by The Social Network’s Armie Hammer. In a new piece from Entertainment Weekly, Hammer drew comparisons from his character in The Social Network when describing the character of Jackson Storm:

“Jackson was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Everything comes easy to him, and everything about him says he’s faster, so much so that we’ve designed him so that even when he’s standing next to McQueen, McQueen looks old… He thinks the world is his. He’s taking over. He’s owed it. In a very broad term, I think of old football players with those little leather skull caps, and you think of football players now with all their armor, hitting so hard. It’s not the same game. What they did was not anything like what we do now. And that’s Jackson: He thinks the future of racing and the high-tech ways they train and what they can do means they’re taking the sport to a new level, and the older guys had their day, and it’s done, and they have no place in the future of racing.”

EW also released a batch of new images, which give details and specs on the lineup for Cars 3. Alongside Lighting McQueen and Jackson Storm is Cruz Ramirez (voiced by Cristela Alonzo), who will serve as McQueen’s new trainer. Brian Fee takes over as director, making Cars 3 his first directorial effort after serving as storyboard artist on the first two films. Cars 3 rides into theaters on June 16th, 2017.

Check out a newly released character video and EW’s photos below, as well as character details at the following link: http://collider.com/cars-3-story-details-voice-cast/#images.

Lightning McQueen is world champion, a modern-day racing legend who is riding high with five Piston-Cup wins under his hood. Suddenly, he finds himself faced with a new generation of racers who threaten not only his dominance in the sport but the confidence that got him there. Determined to get back to the pole position, the #95 must decide if his love for racing is enough to fuel the comeback of his life.

Jackson Storm is fast, sleek and ready to race. A frontrunner in the next generation of racers, Storm’s quiet confidence and cocky demeanor are off-putting but his unmatched speed threatens to redefine the sport. Trained on high-tech simulators that are programmed to perfect technique and maximize velocity, Jackson Storm is literally built to be unbeatable and he knows it.

Cruz Ramirez is a sunny-but-fierce unconventional trainer at the Rust-eze Racing Center. She expertly arms the team’s talented rookies with cutting-edge tools to tear up the track but she nearly stalls when her longtime idol Lightning McQueen shows up. While she’d love to help him find his way back to the top, she knows the competition is faster than ever, and victory is all about speed, or is it?