Back in 2014, Phil Lord and Chris Miller's The LEGO Movie was not only a blockbuster success, but very much set the table for a sequel. Sadly, we still have a couple more years to wait until that anticipated film will arrive in theaters, but the good news is that we now have details about its core themes and premise -- straight from producer Dan Lin. In short, siblings will be a very important element of the follow-up, not to mention the differences in the ways that both boys and girls play with their toys.
I sat down with Dan Lin at the Los Angeles press day for The LEGO Batman Movie earlier this month, and it was at the very end of the interview that we got to talk about the upcoming LEGO Movie Sequel. Discussing how the filmmakers are approaching the material, Lin explained how they are building upon the end of the first movie and what they are aiming to say with the narrative. Said Lin,
We don't make these movies just to make them. With the LEGO Movie Sequel we're going to explore themes we haven't yet explored in the first movie. You can see where we ended the first movie, with Duplo, and Finn being encouraged by his dad to play with his little sister. So you can see it's ripe for storytelling in the sequel, and certainly for themes we didn't explore in the first movie as far as older sibling/younger sibling, how do boys play/how do girls play. So it's really ripe for exploration.
For those that don't remember, the end of The LEGO Movie saw Emmett (Chris Pratt), Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and the others make peace with President Business (Will Ferrell), but find their world rocked by an alien invasion. In the real world, the young boy Finn (Jadon Sand) is told by his dad (Ferrell) that his younger sister is going to start playing with them, with introduces the central LEGO cast to the aliens from Planet Duplo, who are there to "destroy" them. It's worth noting that the follow-up is following real time, and that The LEGO Movie Sequel will be set a few years after the events of the first film, so we'll have to see how that plays into the mix.
You can watch Dan Lin talk about plans for The LEGO Movie Sequel in the video below!
But that's not all! Given that everyone expects that Batman will be back for more in The LEGO Movie Sequel, I also asked Will Arnett about the project at the LEGO Batman Movie press day, and you can read his thoughts about the sequel on the next page!
Like I did with Dan Lin, I also asked Will Arnett about the development of The LEGO Movie Sequel when I sat down to interview him, though I did take a different tact. I asked the actor if the upcoming film would reflect the changes in Batman's character made in The LEGO Batman Movie -- and while he couldn't really answer that, he did explain why he's happy to be working with The LEGO Movie filmmakers. Said Arnett,
That I can't say, but I can tell you that yeah, we are starting to work on that and it's really exciting. I think people are going to like the story; it's super fun. It's exciting for me to do this with this gang, and then kind of go back -- even though it's all in the same family -- go back and work with some of those other people. And to be able to go back and forth is something that I hope that I can do... not forever, but maybe just until I'm 90. Because I am going to live forever. People know that, right?
You can watch Will Arnett talk about his work on The LEGO Movie Sequel in the video below:
There is still another LEGO movie set to hit the big screen before The LEGO Movie Sequel, with the LEGO Ninjago Movie scheduled to arrive in theaters on September 22nd... but after that comes a good bit of waiting. The LEGO Movie Sequel is set to arrive in theaters on February 8, 2019 -- almost exactly four years after its predecessor.
