The Live-Action/Animated LEGO Movie is Coming in 2014

lego_movie_theater300.jpgHow's this for under-the-radar weekend news: Warner Bros. is moving ahead with its live-action/animation hybrid LEGO movie, which should hit screens in 2014. According to Variety, the pic will be comprised of 80 percent animation, to be handled by Animal Logic, the Aussie-based vfx house behind Happy Feet and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, which could mean gorgeously rendered and lifelike... LEGO blocks come to life?

Details are scarce on the project for now, but Variety runs down the principals involved behind the scenes:

"Lego" has been in development at Warner Bros. since 2008, when the studio began working with the toymaker on a family comedy based on the popular building blocks with Dan Lin and Roy Lee producing and the writing team of Dan and Kevin Hageman tapped to pen the script. In 2010, Warners brought on the "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller to write and direct... Warners recently brought on Chris McKay, director of Adult Swim's stop-motion animation/comedy "Robot Chicken," to serve as co-director on "Lego" under Lord and Miller.

What this means is that while, yes, a LEGO movie sounds patently ridiculous -- Battleship had a vague real-world set-up, and Ouija conjures spooky supernatural goings-on, in the very least -- you might rest easy knowing that the folks behind the excellent Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and the hilarious pop culture-skewering Robot Chicken are on the job.

Intriguingly enough, Lord and Miller (currently working on 21 Jump Street) previously described their LEGO movie as taking place "in a universe... entirely made out of LEGO" that would look like "super charged stop-motion."

But you tell me. We've got Candyland, Battleship -- heck, why not an Uno action epic? The gritty Yahtzee crime thriller? Is this LEGO picture any more promising than the rest of the real (or imagined/inevitable) board game/toy adaptations already on the horizon?

Warners greenlights 'Lego' feature [Variety]

[Photo credit: LEGO Cinema Room by Ricardo Oliveira via Neublack]



Comments

  • j'accuse! says:

    Wait until Lite-Brite hits the multiplex. It'll just a series of Lite-Brite configurations fading into each other for two hours, but they'll spike the beverages with mandy so all the drooling morons will just be transfixed for hours (or groping each other).

  • KRIS the KLINGON says:

    Okay, LEGO movie. If you've ever stepped on a Lego while barefoot, you're not going to be too eager to see the plastic come alive. And when the Lego Blocks go out and work the talk-show circuit, or show a lot of Lego cleavage while walking the Hollywood red carpet... you'll be thinking wistfully that there could be a LINCOLN LOG Movie, starring Tinker Toy. ERECTOR SET (this film not yet rated.)
    KRIS
    KAG.org

  • The WInchester says:

    So basically you mean Tree of Life?
    ZING!!!
    Seriously, though, I'm looking forward to this movie, just to see the literal arc that the character will build.

  • The WInchester says:

    I'm gonna wait for the dumbed down version called "Duplo".

  • Bricky says:

    Zillions already exist. Search youtube for "brick films."

  • j'accuse! says:

    I wish. I saw The Tree of Life three times and nobody felt me up during. That being said, clever bastard...haha...we'll see...

  • Noah James says:

    The fact that this movie exists doesn't really bother me - but maybe that's because I'm still numb from hearing they are actually making the Erector Set movie...in 3D.

  • Martini Shark says:

    "Keanu -babe! Your favorite agent has got THE role for you! A script just came across my desk and I promise you nobody will be able to call your performance wooden this time!!!

  • Jo says:

    Legos are already cool enough. They don't need Hollywood ruining any of their magic.