The “LEGO Movie” (What we know so far)
It’s been three years since we first got word that a “LEGO movie” was in development over at Warner Brothers. Since that initial announcement, they’ve released some tidbits about the film here and there, but it’s been piecemeal at best. And in this weird, modern, publicity-driven movie making landscape, I can’t tell whether that’s a good or a bad thing.
Technically, this won’t be the first official LEGO feature — there are the four Bionicle films, as well as The Adventures of Clutch Powers; though these are all direct-to-DVD releases. (Also, did you know they’re planning a live-action Hero Factory movie?) I’m sure we’ll cover all of these films on this site at some point, despite the fact that they’re CG animated and not what we classify as true “LEGO Animation”.
Anyway, from what we know, “LEGO: The Motion Picture” won’t fall into that category, either, as it will be mostly CGI with some live-action photography. Other information about the film that has been released thus far (some of it just rumors, I’m sure):
- The release date of the film (as of this writing) has been announced as February 28, 2014.
- The working title (according to the often-misinformed IMDb) is “LEGO: The Piece of Resistance”.
- The film’s story was penned by Dan and Kevin Hageman, who previously worked on the “Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu” animated series on Cartoon Network, as well as the forthcoming animated feature “Hotel Transylvania“.
- Also credited as writers are co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, known for the surprisingly delightful “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” film adaptation.
- In an interview with MTV, the two directors discuss the plot of the film, and how it’s “weird, in a great way.” (Color me intrigued.)
- “Parks and Recreation” actor Chris Pratt has been cast as “Emmett”, the main character of the film.
- Will Arnett has apparently signed on to voice Batman (a minifigure Batman, I’m assuming). My gut is telling me “awesome!”… but my gut is also very hungry.
- Finally, there’s LEGOTheMotionPicture.com, where you can enter a vehicle design contest for a chance to have one of your LEGO creations featured in the film. There’s also a Facebook fan page if you’re into that sort of thing.
What do you guys think? Does the “LEGO Movie” sound like something you’d go see?
UPDATE [08/29/12 11:00am EDT]
Apparently production folks’ ears must have been burning as I wrote this post, because just as it went live, some new casting and plot information started floating around:
- Morgan Freeman has been cast as someone called “Vitruvius”; possibly named after the Roman architect (or a Da Vinci reference)?
- Elizabeth Banks has been cast as someone TBA.
- Australian animation house Animal Logic will do the CGI work.
- The film’s plot on IMDb: “An ordinary Lego mini-figure, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil Lego tyrant from gluing the universe together.”
- Some alternate plot info from Gizmodo.
- A twitter account for the film.