In what must be extremely relieving news for Warner Bros. as it attempts to transform this year’s animated smash The LEGO Movie into a bona fide franchise, it’s been revealed that Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who wrote and directed the first film, are returning to pen the script for The LEGO Movie 2.
Previously, it had been unclear whether the duo would return to assist with the sequel in anything more than a producing capacity. Back in June, Lord and Miller, asked to brainstorm a plot for Warner Bros., admitted that they were finding it tricky to ‘sequelize’ The LEGO Movie – hardly surprising, considering that the original’s themes of originality and childhood imagination didn’t exactly leave anything open-ended. Now, it appears that the two have cracked the case.
No word yet on whether the duo will return to direct the sequel as well. Chris McKay, the animation co-director and editor on The LEGO Movie, was previously set to take the reins on the follow-up, but he’s just been tasked with directing The LEGO Batman Movie, which Warner Bros. is fast-tracking for release in 2017. As a result, The LEGO Movie 2 has been pushed out of its previous May 26th, 2017, release date back to 2018.
Given that, one can imagine that Warner Bros. wants the pair to direct The LEGO Movie 2 more than they do McKay, which is understandable given the bang-up job that Lord and Miller did on the first film. Regardless of who ends up helming, though, that Lord and Miller, to whom the creative brilliance of The LEGO Movie can be mostly attributed, have been brought back into the fold is great news for the franchise.
The studio certainly has big plans for their LEGO films. First up is a LEGO Ninjago spinoff to be directed by Charlie Bean (a producer on Disney’s Tron: Uprising series), arriving on September 23rd, 2016. After that, we’ll see The LEGO Batman Movie, which will bring back Will Arnett as the Caped Crusader and, as previously stated, finds McKay in the director’s chair. Finally, The LEGO Movie 2 will bow in 2018.
We’ll keep you posted with more on each of those titles as news emerges.
