Not to be outdone by studio rivals like DreamWorks, who recently looked inside a View-Master and found a new movie with each click of its slide-advancing lever, Warner Bros has just announced it's getting in on the potentially very lucrative toy-to-film game, partnering with Lego on a big-screen adaptation about every kid's favorite interlocking blocks and the sallow-complected, button-headed drones who maintain the structurally suspect edifices clicked together by delighted children. But what will the Lego movie look like?
According to Variety, Warner is remaining typically tight-lipped about the plot, perhaps fearing a competitor will burgle their top-secret ideas and churn out the Lincoln Logs-based feature they've long been pursuing, but they did discover it's an "action-adventure set in a Lego world" that "will mix both live action and animation." With only these vaguest of clues to guide us (and spurred on by a typically deader-than-dead August news day), Movieline now looks at the Lego products themselves to try and figure out which playsets might actually inspire a feature-length treatment.
LEGO City Police Headquarters/LEGO City Fire Station
In turning to the proudest and bravest citizens in all of Lego City for their stories, literally dozens of potential movie ideas emerge, from Backdraft-inspired tales of heroism where half-melted victims are pulled from brightly colored, teetering buildings engulfed in flames, to gritty cop dramas like Narc or Dark Blue. And as Lego City almost certainly has a facility where their tiny cops need to be trained, they could possibly launch their own Police Academy-esque comedy franchise, anchored by a charismatic, wisecracking recruit obsessed with getting into his fellow classmate's painted-on pants.
LEGO City Advent Calendar 2008
Although this playset wouldn't readily lend itself to Warner Bros' action-adventure concept, it could, however, provide them with a potential holiday blockbuster ready-made to exploit a deep-pocketed religious demographic's hunger for wholesome, family-friendly fare that can keep the kids busy over their winter break from school. Imagine each little plastic window opening up to introduce another scene from the Christmas story (Three Wise Men with interchangeable gifts!), culminating in the birth of a wee, yellow Lego-Jesus. If the Advent-based film proved to be a hit, they could follow up by simultaneously releasing an Easter playset and an all-Lego, big-screen recreation of The Passion of the Christ (luckily, Lego figures have no skin to flay, which could make the film more palatable for the squeamish) for a more adult audience.
LEGO Make & Create Eiffel Tower
If we've learned anything from the success of G.I. Joe, it's that decimating France's most recognizable landmark is a surefire way to lure American moviegoers to the multiplex. Warner Bros would be wise to at least consider going the blowing-shit-up route with the project, as reducing a Lego Eiffel Tower to a pile of smoldering plastic blocks as hundreds of horrified bystanders in snap-on berets look on in horror as their proud monument lay in ruins would be a spectacle for the ages.
LEGO Indiana Jones and the Lost Tomb
Indeed, Warner is never going to get the feature rights from Paramount or Lucasfilm, but given what an unmitigated disaster Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull turned out to be, we pine for a return to Indy's simpler, tomb-plundering days over the alien-filled excess of the most recent installment. Indeed, even a quick glance at the Lost Tomb box provides a much richer, more satisfying Indy experience than Crystal Skull, leading us to believe the Lego team would be a better guardian of the beloved adventurer's cinematic legacy than George Lucas.
Warner builds pic with Lego [Variety]